Sure it can, like encrypted thumb drives can have security fixes.

Most people do not need military grade security in everything, especially things like USB device info. Those that do have a mechanism to do it. That said, MS should at the least, start encrypting them over SSL, there's no excuse for that. Why are you unconcerned over search terms, email and documents being sent, stored and tracked forever in the cloud, but are worried about USB Device IDs?

Ask a bunch of people which would they prefer if they had to pick one. 1) Publish all their web search terms and email for the past 5 years in the local newspaper 2) Do the same for USB device IDs or even software installed on their system.

Not sure what the solution to that is, except to prompt the user every hour with a hundred status messages(the antivirus/firewall turned off ones are bad enough).

Add a 5 minute timer to prompts? Is that the solution?

In order to turn it on, the user must have given explicit permission. It's off by default.

Reference?
The drivers that come with the device or Windows might be outdated, buggy and/or omit new features.
I see updates to drivers in Windows Update many times so they're quite useful to me. Even as a power user, I don't keep visiting my hardware driver websites and keep comparing driver versions. Do you do that? The other option is to clutter up the system with 15 auto updaters from 10 companies. Is hiding the hardware you use from MS(assuming they start encrypting the data, which was a bad omission) that important to all users? Those who have that issue can turn it off.

I think what you said is true for Windows XP, but is certainly not true for Windows 7+.

In Windows, it's turned off until you turn it on.

Ubuntu does the same, if not worse.
https://launchpad.net/apport

If you're really concerned about WER on Windows, just say no when it asks you to send crash reports.

Duh, how does it search for drivers on Windows Update then? Turn off that functionality and then check, if it still does, then it's news.

Next you will tell me that my browser is broadcasting an IP Address.

Forward port 3389 to your machine on your router. This won't work with the Home edition of Windows.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft.rdc.android

From your link:

How would encrypting it with a user key help?

If they may need Office... a Windows RT machine is pretty good too and requires the same low level of support as iPad or Chromebook.

My point is that some folks tend to remember every small thing done by MS over a decade ago, and then they're colored by extremely biased narratives from articles and comments, and then suddenly urban legends becomes "fact", like the AARD code which never affected one real person, much less part of holding CS back. Google's missteps don't get the same traction and everyone seems to forget them pretty quickly. It's just confirmation bias that I notice. Coming to moderation, you have it way easier because you post anti-MS stuff. Try even posting corrections to obvious wrong things on here about MS and you'd be getting downmods for days.

So you make the claim about this issue hurting "the future of computer science", and here we are, with you unable to back up such a epochal event with one reference. Maybe MS went and deleted all internet pages related to this?

Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence, Carl Sagan said, but you're unable to even provide ordinary evidence except your personal experience which even you admit you don't remember exactly, and everyone knows how it could be because DOS config varied from machine to machine with a lot of powerful settings in config.sys and himem.sys, just two examples.

All I can read on it says the code didn't prevent the Windows install from going forward and that it ran silently even if it was present, except in a pre-beta release. Can you provide any web page that contradicts the above? If you're unable to, are you willing to retract your claim? I don't want spend more time trying to dig more facts to contradict an obviously anti-MS person on Slashdot who won't change their mind regardless.

Anyway, don't worry, no one here is going to read this subthread, none of my posts have been modded up like yours have been, and people reading your earlier posts will continue to believe in and propagate the same half truths and misinformation that will mislead more people who don't check the facts for themselves, and the cycle continues. I guess I must just be happy that I am not hit with downmods for going against the grain yet(bracing for them anyway), it's a struggle to keep my karma above the threshold on here.

A proper ultrabook is missing.

The below are extremely misleading if not a lie, as it pertained only to a late beta and not the final version.

I do believe you're mistaken though and probably not lying, because such urban legends are regulaly posted as gospel truth around these parts(imagine someone who didn't know anything about these reading up your modded up posts) and then start to spread these things in their posts as the truth. The cycle of ignorance continues, but in case of Google and Apple, this effect is not that bad, so they get away because people are simply not even aware of their shortcomings most of the time.

Those are not mutually exclusive, and the second doesn't justify the first, it only make people doing it look like ignorant folks with an agenda to push.

Unless you're admitting that you're spreading FUD because MS spread FUD :)