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Windows 10 Release Notes Now Accessible To Users

By Val Powell
Published on: 01:51 PST, Feb 10, 2016

Microsoft’s Windows 10 operating system is slowly, but steadily, expanding in market share among PC users, but the company has always been criticized for its system updates that do not provide users a detailed view of the components being updated.

In response to those comments and suggestions from consumers, the Redmond-based developer has heeded their call.

On Patch Tuesday, the day of the month where the company usually sends out updates, Microsoft launched a web page dedicated to displaying patch and release notes for the updates that roll out to Windows 10.

“After listening to feedback regarding the level of disclosure for Windows 10 updates, we decided to implement a new system for communicating updates to the operating system,” a spokesperson for Microsoft told tech news site VentureBeat.

The spokesman also said that the company has launched the Windows 10 update history site for release notes and patches. In addition, it will also serve as a “historical record of prior release notes.”

For consumers who are using Windows 10 and want to check a specific update, they may have to scroll down in order to find a specific change made by a particular update.

If a Windows user wishes to know more about the specific patch or release note, he may check out the links included in the list for more details.

While Microsoft sharing its info is good for gaining back the consumers’ trust, a report noted that this sort of information regarding patch and release notes might not be significant to most PC users.

However, as far as IT managers, administrators, and some power users are concerned, these details are vital so they can check what’s really going on inside their systems.

The company is reportedly working on new updates for Windows, which are compiled under the codename Redstone. The contents of these updates will most likely be revealed at Microsoft’s BUILD conference next month.

Indeed, releasing the patch notes to the public may be one step forward for Microsoft in gaining back the confidence of its users, as it dismisses previous rumors about spying and system monitoring, which was first revealed in November.

Unfortunately, a new report may once again scare PC users away from upgrading to Windows 10.

An exclusive report by Forbes states that Voat user CheesusCrust has found out that Windows 10 contacts Microsoft and sends information several thousand times a day.

But what is alarming is the circumstances by which these actions of alleged monitoring and sending of data are based on.

According to the Voat member, computers running on Windows 10 would contact Microsoft and send information if the user chose a custom installation of Windows 10, where the three pages of tracking options were disabled.

That simply means users who chose not to allow their system data to be tracked are the ones that would be tracked by Microsoft.

The report explained in detail how this works: Windows 10 sends data to 51 different Microsoft IP addresses a total of 5,500 times. If the user continues using the computer and has exceeded 30 hours, Windows 10 would have already sent the data to 62 more non-private IP addresses from Microsoft.

The risky thing about this is that these types of data and information may be easily intercepted and stolen by hackers because the IP addresses are non-private.

The Voat user tried to conduct the same experiment, this time to a PC that had been freshly installed with Windows 10. Again, all the tracking options were disabled, and the user also launched a third-party program called DisableWinTracking to help.

Still, the computer sent out data to 30 IP addresses 2,758 times within a 30-hour period.

[Image via Wikimedia Commons]

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