Windows Server and System Center 2016 telemetry whitepaper

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Microsoft pub on TechNet: This document provides our server and enterprise customers with the necessary information to make informed decisions about h
[See the full post at: Windows Server and System Center 2016 telemetry whitepaper]

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In addition to the information in this white paper from Microsoft which include actual settings and their configuration for Windows 2016 and Windows 10, as I posted in reply to wdburt1 enquiry about telemetry in another place here on the site, there is a URL linking to documentation about Office telemetry in the Windows 2016/Windows 10 telemetry white paper.

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Thanks for passing this along, ch100.

It is all too rare to find hard information from Microsoft any more. We all know that enterprise customers are going to demand such documentation, especially how to configure their systems to be consistent with their own business objectives and policies.

I’m a bit disappointed that Microsoft treats “enterprise” business and “small” business so very differently now.

The strategy used to be “Pro” (or far enough back, even “Ultimate”) for savvy small business use. They still push “Pro”, but what’s “Pro” any more? Can a small business buy 2 seats of Windows 10 Enterprise?

The answer is no. There is a gap – a very important one – because Microsoft simply doesn’t want to have to consider more than two classes of users.

“Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler.”

-Noel

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From the paper – 1st page – yes, you read it right, 1st page:

‘Our commitment to transparency and trust is clear…’

After the foul ups by m$ that I’ve seen many go through here these past months?

It physically turned my stomach just to read it. In the end I just had to walk away from the laptop.

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Noel, I posted elsewhere on this site about Microsoft removing Store-blocking Group Policy from Windows 10 Pro, but not from Enterprise. This only supports your comment about treating Pro more like an end-user version and not a small business version of Windows as it was meant to be. While there are workarounds to this issue about the Store, Microsoft’s new direction of downgrading features in Windows 10 Pro is not quite what the Windows users including business users would like to see. Not mentioning that beyond small businesses, even large businesses have a mixture of Enterprise and Pro versions, so this affects Microsoft’s “important” customers too.

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It might be the right time for an operating system shift for you then

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So for Win10, the home edition is now beta/testing, Pro is now home version and Enterprise still Enterprise but more expensive and harder to obtain.

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You know, a year or so ago I wouldn’t really have been that interested in a swap – I thought this would just be another one of those manageable m$ storms that would eventually blow over. Weed out the odd duff patch, be cautious about settings, keep on top of current info articles and generally adopt a default deny policy. It’s always worked before.

After all, my work uses windows, all 3 universities I graduated from used windows – heck, I’ve grown up with windows for nearly 25 years. Admittedly, we haven’t always got along, but we always found a via media, a common ground that always seemed fair and honest, as best as I could tell. ‘Transparent’, ‘trustworthy’ and to a degree, dependable.

That was then. Now, it has turned into something altogether different. How something works the way it does, has become less important than the fact that it just works. It’s accepted that the end product should always look newer and shinier and is therefore, probably, more helpful, or efficient. Even if we don’t know quite how we got there, it’s an improvement, right?

Unfortunately, for me, it just doesn’t work like that. In the midst of it, you end up with these ever expanding grey areas. Forced upgrades, purposefully misleading information, collection and use of data and in all honesty, precious little information on where it’s all actually headed.

Sadly, overarching this m$ debacle, there remains an immutable truth – whether you pay now, pay later, or both, ultimately nothing in life is for free – it comes with a price tag. I guess the question is how much am I – are we – willing to pay?

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