For Windows 10 to qualify as operating system in the usual sense, it has to operate locally. With what we have been discovering over the last few days, something the Microsoft watchers out there forgot to report (incompetence or malice?), we now know that unless you behave unexpectedly, i.e. actually scrutinize what's going on during the install process, the so-called operating system will actually send your personal data, any personal data is deemed useful for Microsoft and their commercial partners (not to forget the NSA, too), without you intentionally doing so. So far doing things online involved using a web browser. When you do so, you know that the search words and the click go online, what you do not expect is they be sent to Microsoft. And what you do not expect is that your actions go to Microsoft outside a web browser. But that is how it works with Windows 10.

So Windows 10, for this reason, cannot qualify as an operating system in the usual sense. In the usual sense, an operating system operates locally 100%.

So the question is as follows : much of what's going on in Windows is a bunch of local services. Can all the controversial services be stopped once for all ?

In other words : Cortana service ? Mixed search service? and so on.

This is a question I'm asking because it deserves to be answered in the interest of the public.

If the answer is no, if there exists at least one service which will send your personal data even though you've got out of your way to prevent that, then Windows 10 is malware, a criminal software that should be prosecuted.

As tech websites have reported this week, if you click on "Express settings" when installing Windows 10, this will default on enabling the sending of personal data to Microsoft and any other parties they have chosen to send/sell your personal data to.

For this not to happen, you have to avoid clicking on "Express settings" and go through the lengthy, annoying and cryptic custom settings, which means the whole thing is actually designed to trick you.

Just like any malware out there.