As far from an MS fanboy as I am, this is one thing I need to disagree on: WinX, from my experience, seems like a well-made system; at least on fresh installs. The spying "features" can all be disabled (apparently), and function all-local, no MS account required.
The botch (which just keeps getting worse) is the forced-by-any-means upgrade; if you have an upgrade path planned, and you're in the middle of testing, having all the workstations pull the rug from under you (because "This is where you want to go today!") is, IMNSHO, borderline criminal.
In other words: We had wanted to upgrade. Within weeks. Now we're dug in the trenches, locked down and hoping we didn't miss one of the upgrade backdoors; the upgrade plan is, of course, scrapped altogether. In a sentence: COMPLETE LOSS OF TRUST.
The botch (which just keeps getting worse) is the forced-by-any-means upgrade; if you have an upgrade path planned, and you're in the middle of testing, having all the workstations pull the rug from under you (because "This is where you want to go today!") is, IMNSHO, borderline criminal.
In other words: We had wanted to upgrade. Within weeks. Now we're dug in the trenches, locked down and hoping we didn't miss one of the upgrade backdoors; the upgrade plan is, of course, scrapped altogether. In a sentence: COMPLETE LOSS OF TRUST.