Windows 10 Pro supports some features that are nice to have, especially if you like to take advantage of more features of your OS than the Home edition allows for.

Windows store changes my local account to an online account

The Window shop application requires you to sign in with your MSDN account. Once you’ve signed in and purchased the upgrade, your local Windows account is suddenly also converted to an MSDN account. This means, upon the next restart, you can’t log-on with your local accounts’ password anymore, you have to use your low security MSDN password. MSDN passwords are limited to 16 characters which I’ve blogged about earlier here: https://www.securesolutions.no/frustrations-with-microsoft-liveid-sign-on/

Is this a bug? Intended feature? I’ve got no idea.

Privacy settings reset

After the upgrade several of my privacy settings was suddenly reset. When I installed Windows Home a few days ago, I had all the privacy settings set to off, then all of the sudden, while updating my OS, the settings had reset into giving Microsoft my details:

Not only is this rude, it’s a major disrespect to the users who expect privacy. Now onto some minor nuisances.

How to upgrade?

Furthermore, once you’ve purchased the upgrade, there’s no automation in activating the upgrade for your PC. I had to turn to Google (not Bing) in order to figure out how to activate the purchase. I believe I did not miss any vital information in the upgrade process, nor did the confirmation emails from Microsoft give me any information on how to actually use the upgrade I had purchased.

In order to facilitate the upgrade I had to re-enter the store and seek to purchase the upgrade again. This time the purchase button had been conveniently been replaced with an “Upgrade” button. I can see how this is useful if you are purchasing from one machine, and installing on another, however please give some instructions on how to go about this.

The upgrade itself cost about 1300 NOK, or about 150USD, which I consider is rather expensive considering you already bought the OS, and this is just a feature upgrade.

Hopefully Microsoft will A) don’t force users onto their online platform and B) don’t rip users privacy expectations in shreds when we’ve actively taken a choice to not participate.