> The OS and apps can't tell if you're eligible for an update because they don't know if your hardware/drivers will run the new version, because you won't tell them what hardware/drivers you're running now.

Why do you need to give Microsoft a bunch of details about your hardware for this? Why can’t Microsoft publish info about which hardware/drivers are supported in the new update, and then your machine determines whether or not it’s compatible?

Windows uses delta/differential updates for monthly “quality” updates[1] because it uses less bandwidth than big-blob updates.

For diffed updates to work efficiently Windows first works out what hardware/software you have. Then it can either:

1. Send info about the system to an update server and let the server decide what updates it needs.

2. Download a big manifest of all available updates (as you describe) and calculate locally what updates it needs.

Either way, Windows then has to make a request for updates specific to the system, at which point you reveal info about your software and hardware that you were attempting to hide in (2) anyway.

For the semi-annual feature updates, the process is more like you describe where there's a compatibility check then a large download (~3-6GB) containing all new features, even if your system won't be able to make use of all of them.

[1] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/update/p...

I get where you're coming from, but I think it's indicative of exactly what I don't like about Microsoft's attitude, and part of why I don't use their software.

At the end of the day, it's my computer. Not theirs.

Regardless of how much it's "For my own good", that's not their decision to make.

It's my hardware, that I'm paying for. Ultimately, I need to have the final decision on what it does.

I understand and agree with this perspective. I should be able to decide what my device does. (And I can do pretty much equally with Windows/macOS, and more so with Linux.)

But I don't know that, “I own this computer and therefore understand what user defaults will make it most stable and usable for me” scales beyond the informed user to general users, if that's what you were suggesting.

“For your own good” preferences exist to try to make the default experience better for users who don't care enough to understand the tool they're using 10 hours a day. Is choosing defaults that seek to benefit most users really not a decision that software developers should be making?

I understand those and I still don't want to share any telemetry. I'm just asking for freedom to be able to select this option.

Btw, what you're saying is 100% bullshit. There is an obvious trivial way of doing all what you suggested, properly & legitimately: paid software testers. Or, alternatively, actually pay users for telemetry (I love it when companies say "we value your feedback" you value it at $0 all right!)

Software testing only helps if you're an average user. Most of us here are guilty of doing stupid edge-case bullshit at least occasionally.

The well-known quip of "search for an answer to your problem, find a forum post from ten years ago resolved with an 'I figured it out, thanks'" only happens when you're far outside the idiomatic usage of the system.

Sometimes it's necessary; sometimes long-chosen buisness constraints force down the bad arm of an X-Y problem. But that doesn't make it any more likely that anyone other than you (especially the software vendor's QA dept.) will ever independently encounter your problem.

Agree about paying for QA. Users shouldn't be glorified beta testers.

I don't think “just hire QA” or “just pay for the telemetry” solves the issues of how you reliably deliver updates, bug fixes, and asses performance issues at the scale of a company like Microsoft, though. Even the best-funded QA department and millions spent incentivizing data sharing could struggle to achieve a fraction of the coverage that metrics baked into the OS achieves.

> Or, alternatively, actually pay users for telemetry

At a _minimum_, people should at least get free software updates based on findings from the metrics they share. By opting out I'm relying on others to provide that data instead, or for the company to spend more to get it from me or someone else like me, or for them to somehow improve the experience for me without knowing what my experience is.

I recognize that some feel very strongly that software should be possible to improve without any form of automated telemetry, though, and I respect the desire for an off switch and the continued drive for opt-out being the default.

Could you stop the MSFT advertisements?

- All of these are possible without telemetry.

- There is a deceptive button on install that does not work.

- Make it opt-in for submissive persons who want to please MSFT.

> Make it opt-in for submissive persons who want to please MSFT.

Users don't read. Anything that's opt-in will never be opted into, because users won't even look at what the dialog says. (See also: organ donation.)

Most of UX design isn't targeted at people with opinions; it's targeted at the 99% of users who want to never make any decisions at all, because they don't see the system they're interacting with as their responsibility to dictate the policy of. They treat even their own computer—at least in the software sense—as "somebody else's computer."

They're used to interacting with the literal "somebody else's computer" at work, and at informational kiosks; and with the non-literal "somebody else's computer" in the form of the game-console walled-gardens, and the cloud-managed IoT devices. So it's no surprise that they think that "somebody else's computer" rules apply to their PC, too.

The shorter version is that opt-out exists so the people that care don't get angry. If the percent of people who opt-out becomes non-negligible it will cease to be opt-out.