Forum Thread: Should I Screw Win10 - Even if Its "Hardened"?

Hey there guys,

I currently struggle a bit. I have been using Windows10 now for a while, but from time to time i feel like I'm watching into a surveillance camera when i look into my Laptop.

I have some kind of hardened my Windows10 ISO - Used the enterprise N version, removed all the apps and features from the WIM imag before installing and before connecting to the Internet for the first time, i try to disabled/block everything i can find which has anything to do with telemetry/spy/etc.

So, after talking with some experts (Well, most of them were Security Researchers, Pentester and vulnerability researchers) they still do prefer older Version of Windows - Or, even Linux, but after using Linux for like 2 Years full-time I switched back to Windows and use Linux in various VM's from here - mostly it is Windows 7, but also 8.1.

I'm currently thinking about to screw Windows10 - even tho it has some neat features, which still can be "ported" into older version, except for the newer/better powershell.. - and clean install Windows 7 or 8.1, block everything, disable GWX and just use it.

I do have hardened my Win10 machine as much as I can, but i still feel like being watched - Never had this feeling under 8.1 when i used it before Win10.

So, yeah.. What do you guys think about it? I now i could screw Windows completely and go full-time Linux or dual-boot or whatever, but I stopped using Linux because I had to google for so many issues which stopped my productivity, I noticed it is mostly hardware related (exotic Laptops and such), so I prefer to use Windows, but not sure if Win10 is the right choice here since we know all the settings/options are mostly placebo, even blocking IP's in the hosts file is not even working correctly since Windows hard-coded their stuff into their systems.

Thanks