I'm not exactly sure which "line" this would be crossing that wasn't similarly crossed a long time ago by things like forcing people to wear seat belts

You don't see the difference between forcibly detaining someone for the purpose of breaking their skin to apply foreign substances to their bloodstream, and, mandating the use of safety equipment in dangerous vehicles? Really? This is so off topic so let's not go there - we'd have to start another lounge thread for pro-vax'ers who will defend the right of other sane adults to refuse medical treatment...
The anti-vax crowd can refuse treatment (the fate of their children is another issue though...). The anti fluoride crowd can drink bottled water, or purify their tap water. The anti software-backdoor crowd can use obscure linux distros.
No ones rights are being infringed and no one is dying on a hill, as long as the above statements remain true. It seemed to me that Lactose was attacking this status quo by drawing similarities between those who don't like mandatory software backdoors and those who want to refuse medicine, and also hinting (in my reading) that these groups should not be allowed to do so, or that their arguments for doing so are of so little importance that it's ok to trample them. Underlying these arguments is the issue of personal freedom though, which should not be trampled lightly, hence my response.

So everything's fine with our rights as long as I can just move to Linux. If hand-made OS's were legislated against, then yes, that would be a hill worth dying on - that would be a fight for individual freedom.

But I want to use Windows, so this, below, isn't a whinge about rights, this is a whinge as a customer -- these things are objectively terrible:

• There's no schedule or bandwidth limits for when patches are downloaded. Those of us with regular broadband connections can be financially harmed by this simple oversight. Every other content distribution app that I have (e.g. steam, etc) lets me specify bandwidth limits and/or a download schedule... and also lets me pause their download activities. Win10 does not let me (easily) do any of that -- I have to "hack" the OS to pause a download, enforce a download schedule, or enforce a bandwidth quota.
• The schedule for applying updates does not give me enough control. If I'm running a mission critical app that needs to run 24/7 for the next 5 days, I should be able to tell the PC not to reboot for the next 5 days. Windows 98 had to be rebooted daily for a variety of reasons, and then with XP, 7, 8 it's finally a lovely and stable OS that you can run for months on end if you like... and now they undo all of that in 10 by taking control away from these power users... Maybe they want these customers to buy some server-edition OS, but AFAIK, there is no SKU that is aimed at regular desktop power users who may be doing this kind of work. There's no SKU for desktop users that doesn't treat you like a child who can't be trusted with a PC. Trust has value.
• Lastly, in tin-foil hat mode: Intel and MS are working for the NSA, they are part of the "surveillance state". This is just a fact of life now; to pretend otherwise is a laughable position. Most of us just just shrug and hope that this never actually means anything to us personally... Windows update is a back-door into your system. It's hopefully secure enough that no one other than Microsoft (and the NSA) ever use it to get our PC's to execute their code... but by using Windows, you are implicitly consenting to MS/NSA running whatever code they like on your PC, whenever they like. There is a moral argument to be made about refusing to cooperate with a surveillance state, in which case we should all boycott this system... I am personally as of yet too lazy to do more than shrug my shoulders, but others may understandably have more fire in their belly about this.

These are all valid reasons to use a competitor's product (e.g. Linux, or even Windows 8!) instead of theirs, which makes these objectively bad business choices. We actually have downgraded several PC's to Win8 for reliability purposes in our office, because the above issues are real and have actually cost us money.

There's also (thankfully rare) fun horror stories about when updates go wrong... like last year when a Windows update kindly contained malicious code designed to deliberately brick connected hardware devices that had been produced using counterfeit Chinese chipsets. That was great, having the boards that I use to flash code onto my micro-controllers suddenly all become unusable because the vendor that I bought them from had bought them from a factory who used a vendor who bought chips from another factory who may or may not have violated IP law... In that case, the fix was actually to use Linux to un-brick any affected device :o

At least if I had clicked an update button between the devices working and not working, I might have suspected that the update was the cause, instead of wasting hours fiddling with them :lol:

I'm not exactly sure which "line" this would be crossing that wasn't similarly crossed a long time ago by things like forcing people to wear seat belts

You don't see the difference between forcibly detaining someone for the purpose of breaking their skin to apply foreign substances to their bloodstream, and, mandating the use of safety equipment in dangerous vehicles? Really? This is so off topic so let's not go there - we'd have to start another thread for pro-vax'ers who will defend the right of other adults to refuse medical treatment...
The anti-vax crowd can refuse treatment (the fate of children is another issue though...). The anti fluoride crowd can drink bottled water, or purify their tap water. The anti software-backdoor crowd can use obscure linux distros.
No ones rights are being infringed and no one is dying on a hill, as long as the above statements remain true. It seemed to me that Lactose was attacking this status quo by drawing similarities between those who don't like mandatory software backdoors and those who want to refuse medicine, and also hinting (in my reading) that these groups should not be allowed to do so, or that their arguments for doing so are of so little importance that it's ok to trample them. Underlying these arguments is the issue of personal freedom though, which should not be trampled lightly, hence my response.

I thought it was pretty clear that I was talking about software patches, rather than forced vaccinations? If not, consider this a correction.

It was you who said "likewise with computers, which are ever more so becoming extensions of our bodies" -- I think my post makes it clear why I thought that was a bit of a stretch. My point is that the "vehicles inspection/software patch" analogy seems a bit less alarmist than the "forcible injection/software patch" analogy.

And with that in mind, no, I don't see a substantive difference between a government enforcing certain safety standards for vehicles, and a government enforcing certain safety standards for software, from a philosophical/libertarian standpoint. Again, you're free to have whatever opinion you want, but acting like regulating some software patches is something fundamentally new and crosses some line that hasn't been crossed a thousand times before is something you'll have to convince me of.

Unfortunately this option only allows us to choose between 1 and 12 ours of active time.

It's 18 hours and has been for quite some time - http://windowsreport.com/windows-10-active-hours/ - when was the last time you actually looked at this setting?

Unfortunately this option only allows us to choose between 1 and 12 ours of active time.

It's 18 hours and has been for quite some time - http://windowsreport.com/windows-10-active-hours/ - when was the last time you actually looked at this setting?

Hmm, well, it looks like it varies by version. Either that, or you're using the lesser-known definition of "has been for quite some time" which means "probably will be some time in the future." It only lets me set up to 12, and my version of Windows must be up to date, because...

First thing I do after installing Windows 10 and updating once is disabling "automatic update" service because it's annoying.. After then , feel free to check Microsoft catalog website time to time for installing updates you wish or download cumulative updates time to time.

First thing I do after installing Windows 10 and updating once is disabling "automatic update" service because it's annoying.. After then , feel free to check Microsoft catalog website time to time for installing updates you wish or download cumulative updates time to time.

Thanks for being on the same internet as me. :(

Seriously - this isn't a matter of personal choice, freedom or any of that malarkey. This is basic social responsibility. Putting your computer on the internet is the equivalent of moving in next door to other people; if you move in next door to others and you fail in your basic social responsibilities you don't get to whinge about "wahh wahh personal choice, freedom, etc".

Now there's no doubt that Microsoft have badly screwed up their whole updating infrastructure sometime in the timeframe after Windows 7 SP1, but that doesn't excuse people abdicating their own personal responsibilities.

Seriously - this isn't a matter of personal choice, freedom or any of that malarkey. This is basic social responsibility.

Bullshit, this has nothing to do with "basic social responsibility". Social responsibility is me not launching a virus/botnet attack from my own PC by my own will - you being afraid of some 3rd-party hijacking my PC and using it to launch further attack certainly is a matter of personal freedom vs public safety.

I'm all for debating which weights higher in a certain case like this, but you basically going "lul whats dat stupid "personal freedom blah blah thingy", you need to make sure I'm safe from a tertiary attack from your property" is an unbearably totalitarian view on things.

The thing with personal responsibility here is pretty simple - you're reponsible for keeping your PC as safe as you wish it to be. I'm responsible for not using my PC for malicious purpose. Easy as that. And now you come here and say I'm also responsible for making sure that no 3rd party can use my PC to do their own malicous acts - which no, by defaults its absolutely not. Just because I could get to be the involuntary, unknowing middleman for a crime, doesn't give me obligations to eigther you or the attacker.
As long as I'm not actively contributing in damaging other people, I should not be forced to do anything - for example, I totally agree that smoking should be prohibited in closed buildings around non-smokers. But if you now told me to stop smoking because I'm funding the tobacco industry which in turn ends up killing other people - nope oO (thats the closest to a stupid real-world analogy to this that I can get, and thats not even good because I'm still taking a somewhat active role inspite of the update/botnet-thing; sry I suck at these).

(EDIT: To be clear, my origin comment was fully aimed towards the new crappy windows-settings, which does not stop at windows updates; Its not like now with Windows 10 people cannot disable Windows Update anymore, its just times more complicated to find, which doesn't help anyone. Furthermore, you used to be able to configure how and when you wanted to apply updates before - preemtively, not reactionary - so now that this is gone, this could actually give people a reason to turn of updates for good. So whether you like or dislike windows updates, I feel the new settings did not do good for eigther side).

I'm not really clear what distinction you're making between "social responsibility" and "public safety," and indeed I'm not sure such a distinction necessarily exists. When it comes to malware that can actually cost lives (shutting down electricity, causing hospitals to lose records, preventing people from getting to hospitals, etc.) it's not clear to me that computers should be treated differently from other things that can be used as weapons. And it seems to me that "sure, I left all of these loaded, unsecured hunting rifles lying around, and it was unsafe, but I definitely wasn't being irresponsible as long as I didn't personally shoot anyone" isn't really all that convincing, so why can't leaving a computer vulnerable to being easily exploited also be treated as irresponsible as well?

Bullshit, this has nothing to do with "basic social responsibility". Social responsibility is me not launching a virus/botnet attack from my own PC by my own will - you being afraid of some 3rd-party hijacking my PC and using it to launch further attack certainly is a matter of personal freedom vs public safety.
I'm all for debating which weights higher in a certain case like this, but you basically going "lul whats dat stupid "personal freedom blah blah thingy", you need to make sure I'm safe from a tertiary attack from your property" is an unbearably totalitarian view on things.
The thing with personal responsibility here is pretty simple - you're reponsible for keeping your PC as safe as you wish it to be. I'm responsible for not using my PC for malicious purpose. Easy as that. And now you come here and say I'm also responsible for making sure that no 3rd party can use my PC to do their own malicous acts - which no, by defaults its absolutely not. Just because I could get to be the involuntary, unknowing middleman for a crime, doesn't give me obligations to eigther you or the attacker.
As long as I'm not actively contributing in damaging other people, I should not be forced to do anything - for example, I totally agree that smoking should be prohibited in closed buildings around non-smokers. But if you now told me to stop smoking because I'm funding the tobacco industry which in turn ends up killing other people - nope oO (thats the closest to a stupid real-world analogy to this that I can get, and thats not even good because I'm still taking a somewhat active role inspite of the update/botnet-thing; sry I suck at these).
(EDIT: To be clear, my origin comment was fully aimed towards the new crappy windows-settings, which does not stop at windows updates; Its not like now with Windows 10 people cannot disable Windows Update anymore, its just times more complicated to find, which doesn't help anyone. Furthermore, you used to be able to configure how and when you wanted to apply updates before - preemtively, not reactionary - so now that this is gone, this could actually give people a reason to turn of updates for good. So whether you like or dislike windows updates, I feel the new settings did not do good for eigther side).

If your unpatched PC is capable of being part of a botnet that can DDoS my servers, then you are part of the problem. Simple as that, and call bullshit on it all you want, you're not going to change that fact.