Too good for a number scheme, Windows 10 announced for 2015

[Pulsar_t]

@ CRTGAMER I don't want Windows to disclose my info to Richmond either. Perhaps hackers can disable this "feature"? Route data to a dummy IP or something.

[Ivo]

@ CRTGAMER I don't want Windows to disclose my info to Richmond either. Perhaps hackers can disable this "feature"? Route data to a dummy IP or something.

As far as I understand you really can turn off any of the potential privacy issues, if you are willing to sacrifice access to some of the new features such as Cortana.

It is simply a bit annoying to have to go through several options and turn them off one by one and then even go to a Microsoft site in some cases to opt out of one of the things (although this step may only be for those that signed into Windows with a Microsoft account?).

[Pulsar_t]

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/Syst ... ying.shtml

I've found this tool, seems to be highly recommended, so I bit the bullet and did a Win10 install. All is okay so far.

[CRTGAMER]

A bit of Trivia
Windows 8 has a Retail Microsoft Demonstration loop that can be installed from a USB stick. Windows 10 has additional specific Store or model PC optional demonstration loops that can be installed via a hidden screen and are now stream downloaded; look for the Darren DeYoung Microsoft Login.

The Retail Demo setup is a hidden screen which I won't post up front due to the headaches of uninstalling it. It includes a Windows 10 specific Screensaver which even includes a quick image of Sonic! No idea how Sega's blue Mascot snuck into Win 10 dark blue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-9LF-wj6-o

[noiseredux]

whelp, I finally upgraded my gaming PC to 10 as well. All good.

[bmoc]

I've been prepping my workplace for the move to Windows 10. Today I migrated our KMS host from Server 2008 R2 to Server 2012 R2 in order to be able to activate Windows 10 clients. I still have to get the number of Windows 10 clients up to 25 before it will start working. I have 5 on the domain right now (all people in the IT dept).

I also installed the Group Policy ADMX files for Windows 10 onto our domain controllers. I've already found a bug. If you try to do item level targeting in Group Policy Preferences, Windows 7 Enterprise is nowhere to be found if you are editing the GPP from a Windows 10 machine. If you edit the same Group Policy Object from a Windows 7 computer - Enterprise, Pro, and Ultimate are all there.

I've got an image ready in the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit but I will need to redo it in a few weeks when Office 2016 for Windows is released for volume license customers.

My two biggest challenges will be legacy software and ensuring that some of our ancient computers have drivers that will work with Windows 10. But all in all, things are looking good to do some limited testing with general users in the next couple of weeks.

[bmoc]

I've been prepping my workplace for the move to Windows 10. Today I migrated our KMS host from Server 2008 R2 to Server 2012 R2 in order to be able to activate Windows 10 clients. I still have to get the number of Windows 10 clients up to 25 before it will start working. I have 5 on the domain right now (all people in the IT dept).

So it turns out that I didn't need 25 Windows 10 clients for KMS activation to work. I was using the wrong KMS key. I was using a Server 2012 R2 KMS key which should activate everything except Vista. Microsoft made a new KMS key called Windows Srv 2012R2 DataCtr/Std KMS for Windows 10 and tucked it away in a part of the Volume Licensing website that I never visit. This key is really poorly documented and only found it because I stumbled across this knowledge base article while trying to troubleshoot a separate issue. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3086418

I normally get my keys from the product section of the Volume Licensing site because the keys are listed with the product download. Because "Windows Srv 2012R2 DataCtr/Std KMS for Windows 10" isn't a product, I had no idea it existed. Most frustrating.

[fastbilly1]

I've been prepping my workplace for the move to Windows 10. Today I migrated our KMS host from Server 2008 R2 to Server 2012 R2 in order to be able to activate Windows 10 clients. I still have to get the number of Windows 10 clients up to 25 before it will start working. I have 5 on the domain right now (all people in the IT dept).

So it turns out that I didn't need 25 Windows 10 clients for KMS activation to work. I was using the wrong KMS key. I was using a Server 2012 R2 KMS key which should activate everything except Vista. Microsoft made a new KMS key called Windows Srv 2012R2 DataCtr/Std KMS for Windows 10 and tucked it away in a part of the Volume Licensing website that I never visit. This key is really poorly documented and only found it because I stumbled across this knowledge base article while trying to troubleshoot a separate issue. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3086418

I normally get my keys from the product section of the Volume Licensing site because the keys are listed with the product download. Because "Windows Srv 2012R2 DataCtr/Std KMS for Windows 10" isn't a product, I had no idea it existed. Most frustrating.

Thanks for this. I am assisting in a similar rollout for a friends company in a couple weeks, I am sure this would have been a middle of the night hairpulling.

[bmoc]

Glad to help! The only other "gotcha" that I've come across so far was with the KMS host migration. The old KMS host is still in production as it had other roles. Even though I uninstalled the KMS host keys from it, it republished itself in DNS as a KMS host few days later and overwrote the _VLMCS entry which was pointing to the new Server 2012 R2 KMS host. If you are changing KMS hosts and leaving the old KMS host running, be sure to run this command from an elevated command prompt on the old KMS host to disable its DNS publishing: slmgr.vbs /cdns

[noiseredux]

a thought...

I believe Windows 10 has its own virtualization built in, yeah?

Well, I have a sealed Windows XP disc. I'm wondering if I can run XP inside 10 and use that virtualized XP to run older SecureRom/etc games that way to get around the 10 lockout on the archaic DRM?