Actually, no. Microsoft instrumented essentially every OS component (and sharing backend infrastructure, universal telemetry client, etc.) starting in Windows 10. Prior to that, it was just a few isolated pieces that had their own kind of telemetry.
Not quite. Windows 8 had most of the same telemetry, but it was off by default and you were given the option to turn it on during or after installation. Windows 10 flipped that on its head by giving you a page during install that said "get started quickly" which automatically turned everything on, and there was a tiny text link at the bottom which said "customize". Clicking that gave you three pages of telemetry-related toggles that you had to manually click to turn off. Even then, basic telemetry (anonymized usage data and crash reports) is still sent to them.
After Windows 10 was released, Microsoft started backporting most of its telemetry capabilities to Windows 8 and 7 and turning them on by default, rendering those versions just as "backdoored" as 10. That was what pushed me to accept that Windows was never going to get better in that regard, and so I've upgraded all my Windows 7 and 8 machines (except my Surface RT obviously) to take advantage of the new features. I'm especially enjoying native NVMe support on my new workstation build; I can't go back to a spinning HDD without feeling like I've stepped 20 years into the past.
Also wrong. The telemetry in Windows 8 was just in critical components that had been instrumented long ago, such as Windows Update, crash management, etc. None of those were using the current universal telemetry system. In fact, I don't know if all of them moved to the new telemetry infrastructure shared with the rest of the OS or if they kept what they had and just added the new telemetry on top.
All that said, I agree with your last point about upgrading being a fair compromise compared to staying in Windows 7 or gasp Windows 8.
> The telemetry in Windows 8 was just in critical components that had been instrumented long ago, such as Windows Update, crash management, etc. None of those were using the current universal telemetry system.
Are you sure? I did a lot of Windows 8 installations when I was evaluating it, and I distinctly recall the option to turn on the same tracking features that 10 had on by default. In the Windows 8 installer they were presented up front and off by default, in 10 they are hidden and on by default.
As of a month ago this is still the case; I reset a Windows 8 hybrid laptop, going through the standard installation screens, and then upgraded it to 10.
The EULA for it is the same, but the underlying system is totally different. I am 100% sure about this :-)
But, as you noted, a lot of the telemetry instrumentation has been backported so that argument is lost for someone wanting to avoid upgrading to Windows 10 from an earlier version.
