This post says what I feel. Seriously, why are they forcing Cortana on people if they don't even care who she is? They're not porting any Halo games to PC anytime soon.

I'd say there's a significantly larger percent of users that are affected by this, solely out of privacy concerns. Lest we forget the NSA datamining scandal that I think played a large part in crumpling the x1's launch (Microsoft was one of the corporations involved with that, along with trying to launch a console that was "always on" with a mandatory camera staring back at you).

The ironic part being that I was thinking about how I wish Linux had a simple distro with enough apps to justify a switch lol.

Edit: Actually, the first and fourth things mentioned seem significant as well. I wouldn't want pre installed apps plastered on my computer and it would irk me to have software that isn't removeable - which is something that greatly bothers me about most android smart phones. 

Going by that this patch is a non issue since people shouldn't even have any version of Windows installed.

If I don't use Windows on my PC, I'm still using android on my phone.

If I don't use android, I'm still using google as my search engine.

If I don't use a search engine, I'm still getting tracked by cross site cookies.

If I disable cookies, I'm still sending my IP to foreign servers and my ISP to track my movements.

If I stop using the internet and go outside, I'm still gonna be seen by public cameras.

If I somehow avoid public cameras, I'm still going to be filmed by passerbys or dashboard cameras.

If I stay inside with no internet and barred windows am I still living?

People should be less concerned about applications recording their movements and more about what information they're actually presenting.

After the whole NSA scandal my only feeling was pity for the poor NSA to have to waste bandwidth and storage for my garbage data.

Not being able to turn off Cortana is stupid as all hell. I switched to Ubuntu as my main OS about 7 years ago, and these days I only boot into Windows on my desktop ti play games. I do, however, have a Windiws tablet, and as soon as I upgraded to Windiws 10(which I regret due to it being a buggy mess) I turned off Cortana, because it slows the whole system down to a crawl. WTF does M$ get from forcing all these useless features on users anyway?

To those who took the free upgrade, I hope now you see it wasn't *exactly* free. The free aspect was in exchange for opting into this whole "MS does whatever it wants" system. It was all a ploy to encourage or force mass adoption so that MS can get away with this crap.

Funny how Windows is becoming a much more closed up "walled garden" than Macs ever were. Too bad, under Tim, Apple has their heads in the sand and making it hard for me to consider a Macbook Pro.

How come it's 2016 and I have a better selection in the mobile section than in the PC space

Forced "Microsoft consumer experiences policy" .........wow....

MS can just install and uninstall whatever they want on your pc now, and theres no way anyone can disable it.

Cant disable windows store either anymore.... gotta love Apps...
Cortana is now always on too, and spying on you.


Yep.... we all knew this was going to happend.

Because shes a A.I that datamines you, and MS wants to sell your info ? I know thats probably just me being paranoid but still...

^ this is what I did. I guess Im going to stay windows 8.1 for a long time.

I just hope Vulkan really takes off...

MS needs to quit pushing this crap on people, and let the user use things how they see fit.