Y'know, I hate to say it, but I bet this is only the tip of the iceberg. A lot of people going this route will be sorry when they get the real bill on this (not talking about the subscription model, even), in the form of unprecedented intrusiveness, spying, and loss of user control. I don't want to be the one saying 'I told you so.'
That ignoring the Hosts file thing is a neat if insidious hack on their part. It may be that _other_ hackers will bring this beast to heel in time, finding ways to circumvent these objections: we shall see. But I'm not counting on it. And remember, as things stand you will not be allowed to opt out of their updates. That way lies disaster. And that factor alone completely removes 10 from consideration here.
I have users running a "frozen" XP on old hardware that is not connected to the internet. (They have other rigs, just to handle that.) That may be the path I will wind up following with 7, while I am gradually being forced into the arms of Linux.
Jordan
From: flash
To: xywrite@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, December 10, 2015 10:31 AM
Subject: Re: Windows 10 considerations
Y'all,
Two things have caught my attention since upgrading to W10 from 8.1:
1. It is not sufficient to turn off everything there is to turn off
(auto-updates, Contara etc.). I did that, and the machine still
contacts the mother ship every time the machine boots. It even ignores
the hosts file pointing to 127.0.0.1 for the Microsoft update server
and continues to contact that server. Pfui.
2. Since having upgraded, I have received spam from microsoft, though
I am quite sure I never provided them with my private eddress. It can
only have come from the the upgrade process having 'spied' on my email
account settings in T'bird. Pfui!