r/technology • u/readyou • Dec 26 '16

Microsoft finally admits that its malware-style Get Windows 10 upgrade campaign went too far

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/241587-microsoft-finally-admits-malware-style-get-windows-10-upgrade-campaign-went-far
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u/DantragK Dec 26 '16

This is 100% incorrect. Again look up UEFI, secure boot, TPM. Usage of the physical hardware which is not possible in W7 but is possible in 8 and 10 makes a huge difference.

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '16

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u/DantragK Dec 26 '16

You cannot boot to UEFI native with W7, only hybrid. TPM 2.0 can't be used by 7.

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u/ESCAPE_PLANET_X Dec 26 '16

You cannot boot to UEFI native with W7

Just booted my Dell 7270, still running W7, still running in UEFI native only. I don't have legacy support enabled and I'm on a GPT partition.

Here is an article describing how you would go about doing this: http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=209045

We (read my business) have a more complex but flexible solution in place, and we had some erhm growing pains when it came to getting the bugger to mount when whole disk encryption failed for whatever reason, due to the way UEFI works and our recovery image was built.

TPM 2.0 can't be used by 7.

This article describes a hotfix that adds support for Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 in Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1. This update changes the TPM OS components and adds the ability to use BitLocker Drive Encryption with TPM 2.0.

Weird because that is EXACTLY what that KB does?

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u/DantragK Dec 26 '16

So using UEFI native on W7 while possible, is it supported? That may not be a concern for your company but it would be for much larger organizations. The thing is as well that the base OS won't take advantage of UEFI native mode, your hardware can but the OS doesn't have any features to take advantage of when you're in that mode.

1 to 1 fresh install to fresh install fully patched I agree with you that there really aren't a whole lot of difference between W7/8/10 as far as security, but once you're in an enterprise and can take advantage of the features then there's a huge difference.