Windows Explorer

Some time ago (Spring, 2000) I acquired a Hewlitt Packard Pavilion PC. My first disappointment was when I found that I had a wide choice of which software to use on the machine-- as long as it was Windows ME. I did the usual footwork of reading all the tech articles I could find on this OS, and the more I read, the less appreciation I began to have for both Hewlitt Packard and Microsoft for their "benevolent" attitudes that seemed to think that they knew what was best for me. However, I won't get into the woes of trying to use Windows ME right now.

What aroused my attention was that after installing ZoneAlarm ™  I found out about the wayward ways of Windows Explorer when ZoneAlarm informed me that it was trying to access the internet. Yes, I said Windows Explorer, the file manager, not Internet Explorere, the browser. I used to recommend Zonealarm to everyone by the way, but no longer; it seems that later versions of ZA will not report any of Microsofts nefarious actions.

Wondering why my trusty old Windows Explorer was trying to access the internet, I started doing some probing, and was a little surprised at what I found-- and more than a little irritated.

It seems that when you install Internet Explorer, it creates a permanent cookie which contains your PC's Globally Unique ID (GUID), and the first time you use the browser it connects you automatically to a "Welcome" page on Microsoft's website, which retrieves your GUID without your knowledge or consent, without a warning of any kind. This number is stored in Microsoft's massive database for their future use....?

What can you do about it? Nothing, unfortunately. The GUID of your PC is unique in all the world, and it is created by Windows when you install any Microsoft OS. This number points directly to you as surely as your driver's license or Social Security numbers do. Microsoft certainly has no business behaving in this manner, and it is surely an immoral invasion of personal privacy in my opinion. I suspect, too, that this is the result of Microsoft's rampant paranoia concerning software piracy, which seems to continue to preoccupy their time more and more each year.

The connection between Windows Explorer's phoning home and the Internet Explorer should be obvious; Windows has slowly but surely integrated all of it's applications with the Internet Explorer browser since the days of Windows 3.0. When I stumbled onto this behavior, I had connected to the internet, but had not yet opened IE, and only had Windows Explorer open. I presume that any Windows app could conceivably phone home with the GUID information to Microsoft as long as there is a connection open to the web.

It's a sad state of affairs when your realize how little your privacy means to Microsoft. With Microsoft's current monopoly, there is sadly very little that can be done about it, except to complain to our legislators or switch to Linux. And that is exactly what I finally did. If you think that you should be in charge of your computer, rather than Microsoft, then my best advice would be to dump that bloated, control-happy OS and go with one of the Linux Distributions. Mandrake, Fedora, Suse or Ubuntu are among some of the easier Linux versions for Windows users to switch to.

Think about this: it is not only Windows applications that may contain spyware... the whole OS seems to do the same thing. Just because it's Microsoft that collects your information does not make it okay. The PC that sits here on my desk, and all the information it contains, belongs to me-- not to Microsoft or to anyone else.