>The very, very common reason for this is that it's an employer provided laptop. >So the employee has no (reasonable) choice in the matter. In this case, the p

>The very, very common reason for this is that it's an employer provided laptop. >So the employee has no (reasonable) choice in the matter. In this case, the point is moot: the employee should not be trusting his/her data to Microsoft, not because of MS itself, but because the computer isn't theirs. Even if the computer were running an OS they trusted, they shouldn't be putting their private data on there, because it's not their computer. Clearly, the employer trusts MS, because they selected them as their OS vendor, so the employee's opinion doesn't matter. If the employer's data gets stolen or whatever, that's the employer's problem, not the employee's. If you simply don't like the computing environment your employer provides you, find another employer, or just put up with it like you put up with other annoyances that come with employment. Every job is a compromise.