I’d like to bring your attention to the reality of the Microsoft world we live in. I am sure that most of you will know everything that I say below, but it is good to repeatedly hear things we know – hear them from several sources – to solidify our core knowledge.
Windows 10 is known to send information back to Microsoft. The new technology named Asimov is designed to gather information to improve the operating system. Microsoft is not denying it is using telemetry with nearly every product it produces. What’s unknown is what information is being collected. Many people are concerned about what is being sent back to Microsoft, and others are downright upset about the issue. Here are some titles of relevant articles that I found:
“Microsoft admits Windows 10 preview has a keylogger”
“Using the Windows 10 Technical Preview? Microsoft might be watching your every move to help with feedback”
“Windows 10 Technical Preview criticised for collecting data”
“Microsoft is NOT Tracking Your Every Waking Moment with Windows 10”
There are a few key points to keep in mind regarding the current state of Windows 10:
-
Windows 10 is a tech preview and does not cost you any money to run.
-
Windows 10 is not ready for production, and there is no need for you to run this operating system.
-
You should not be running Windows 10 computers on a production network for testing.
Rather than concern yourself with what information Microsoft is collecting, test Windows 10 using caution and intelligence. Here are some tips to protect your company’s production data and Active Directory privacy.
-
Do not put Windows 10 on your production network.
-
Do not join Windows 10 to your production or production-test Active Directory.
-
Do not use the same usernames and passwords on Windows 10 that you also use in production or your production-test environments.
-
Do not remotely connect from Windows 10 to your production or production-test environments at all.
-
Do not store data of any kind on your Windows 10 computers.
-
When performing your tests, try to function on your Windows 10 computers as a standard user rather than an administrator.
Windows 10 is currently beta software. It should be tested and used in the same way that any other software is tested. The key is to protect your production environments and to not share information from your production environments. Testing Windows 10 is important, and if you plan on considering this operating system in the future, you need to test it sooner rather than later.
