Terms and rules

Terms and Conditions

WindowsForum.com is intended to provide an online means of public conversation about the Microsoft Windows operating systems. You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use this website to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, purposely inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise in violation of any law. Furthermore, you agree not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you. This includes any links to pirated software and links to software in violation of intellectual property rights. You agree to not use the Service to submit or link to any Content which is defamatory, abusive, hateful, threatening, spam or spam-like, likely to offend, contains adult or objectionable content, contains personal information of others, risks copyright infringement, encourages unlawful activity, or otherwise violates any laws. Your use of this website constitutes your agreement to indemnify and hold harmless the owners, staff, and members of WindowsForum.com from any legal action resulting from damage to your computer hardware, software, or loss of information resulting from "bad advice". The exchange of information, over the Internet, comes with inherent risks, and we are in no way responsible for how you use that information. The providers ("we", "us", "our") of the service provided by this web site ("Service") are not responsible for any user-generated content and accounts ("Content"). Content submitted express the views of their author only.

All Content you submit or upload may be reviewed by staff members. All Content you submit or upload may be sent to third-party verification services (including, but not limited to, spam prevention services). Do not submit any Content that you consider to be private or confidential. Although the administrators and moderators of WindowsForum.com will attempt to keep all objectionable messages off this forum, it is impossible for us to review all messages. All messages express the views of the author, and the owners of the website will not be held responsible for the content of any message. We reserve the rights to remove or modify any Content submitted for any reason without explanation. Requests for Content to be removed or modified will be undertaken only at our discretion. We reserve the right to take action against any account with the Service at any time. You hereby acknowledge the forum staff of WindowsForum.com reserve the right to remove, edit, move or close any thread for any reason and deny access to the service for any reason.

• You are granting us with a non-exclusive, permanent, irrevocable, unlimited license to use, publish, or re-publish your Content in connection with the Service. You retain copyright over the Content. You hereby surrender rights to all content posted on WindowsForum.com, excluding any content which may exist outside of WindowsForum.com.
  
  
• You acknowledge that this website is not owned, operated, or affiliated with Microsoft Corporation, nor does it purport to be. It is a member of the Microsoft Partner Program (Organization Partner ID : 5001155). You hereby acknowledge that WindowsForum.com is not affiliated, endorsed, sponsored, or owned by Microsoft Corporation, nor does it hold a claim on the company's trademarked and copyrighted works. All products featured on WindowsForum.com are owned and copyrighted by their respective companies.
  
  
• You hereby acknowledge that this agreement is a binding contract for so long as you use your WindowsForum.com account and may be updated, with or without notice at any time.
  
  
• You acknowledge that should your access be denied to the website, due to a violation of our policies, or for any reason, that any attempt to access our servers, services, Internet protocol address, social media pages, or any property associated or pertaining to this website may constitute a material breach of local, state, national, and international law pertaining to unauthorized access to a computer system.

By using this Web site and the information in it available, you agree to follow and be bound by these terms and conditions. If you do not agree to these terms and conditions, - do not use our Web site.

Adherence to Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)

Your use of the website constitutes your willingness to abide by US and international copyright law. This includes, but it's not limited to, posting the full text of an article without the author's consent. You shall post no material abridging the rights of the content owner of copyrighted materials on a 3rd party website or otherwise. Materials posted from other websites should be posted with the approval of both WindowsForum.com and the content owner when appropriate. A failure to abide by these rules will result in the termination of your account and removal of all materials which may violate the DMCA law in the United States.

FOR MOBILE APP USERS THROUGH THE GOOGLE PLAY STORE AND ANDROID DEVICES
ADHERENCE TO THE PROMINENT DISCLOSURE REQUIREMENT AS OF SEPT 6, 2017:

Prominent Disclosure Requirement

According to Google, we are required to make a Prominent Disclosure Requirement for mobile app users. We are working to comply with this issue, as it has just been brought to our attention on the 6th of September 2017. THIS APPLIES IF YOU ARE USING THE ANDROID VERSION OF THE “WINDOWS FORUMS” APP FROM GOOGLE PLAY: According to Google: “If your app collects and transmits personal or sensitive user data unrelated to functionality described prominently in the app’s listing on Google Play or in the app interface, then prior to the collection and transmission, it must prominently highlight how the user data will be used and have the user provide affirmative consent for such use."

PROMINENT DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

The WindowsForum.com app requests, only optionally, your location, to better help us understand, through Google Analytics, your needs and requirements as a concept to better improve our app and website. You are prompted through a dialogue box within the app as to whether or not you want to provide this information, and can disable it at any time under App Info (in Android O) or App Permission Settings in previous versions of Android. Such information is not sold to third parties directly by our organization or website. We do not knowingly or willfully, and will not EVER, collect your phone contacts, read them, parse them, disseminate them, or otherwise do anything which may hinder or violate your privacy. The app will read and write to device storage and requires these certain permissions on your device to maintain a data cache so that you can easily return to your previous state upon using the app again.

Upon registration, we request your e-mail, in order to, first and foremost, prevent spam and help us to moderate content, particularly spam. Your e-mail also allows you to participate in discussions, submit requests for technical help, and access additional website features while within the mobile app. Upon registration, this access is also carried over, if you so choose, to the web browser version of the website. We do not harvest, data-mine, or collect e-mails to distribute them to third parties to reveal any personally identifiable information. The primary reason for account registration via e-mail is to allow you to access the service, and use it, without only having guest browsing privileges. This also helps to protect all parties involved from abuse, misrepresentation, and confusion when utilizing the WindowsForum.com service.

Mass Posting of Full Articles or Excerpt Articles

The mass-posting of content from third party websites is a practice strictly prohibited on WindowsForum.com. This policy is designed to protect the content owners of these sites, abide by the DMCA, and avoid post spam. Content holders who feel their intellectual property may be posted here without permission should immediately contact us.. Members should not engage in this practice to propagate news stories repeatedly, even if the content of each news story or event is different.

Fair use exemptions are in place under all of these terms.

These terms may be changed at any time without notice.

Before you post a message to the forums, and by registering on the forums, you hereby agree to be bound to the following rules:

Forum Rules

No Software Piracy: You agree by posting on this site you will not post links or discuss in any way, ways to pirate or illegally download any proprietary or commercial software. (Example: Windows). This site is based on discussion and support for this kind of software, not stealing it. There are no exceptions to this policy.

Spam: There is a zero tolerance policy in regards to spam on WindowsForum.com. This includes all commercial links placed anywhere during your access of the site. There are no exceptions to this policy.

Unlawful Activity: You will not discuss unlawful activity, nor commit or discuss unlawful acts while using the website.

Privacy Invasion: You will not undermine anyone's personal privacy while using the website. You will not collect, disclose, data-mine, or otherwise use information provided by WindowsForum.com members for any purpose, without written approval of that member.

Copyright Infringement: You will post no copyrighted material, less the copyrighted material is owned by you, or free to use under Fair Use Doctrine.

Hacking: You will not discuss the methodology of hacking, for illegal purposes, or attempt to attack the website, or any of its members through hacking attempts.

Denial of Service: Any member found to be attempting to commit a Denial of Service attack against any other member or the website has willfully violated the law.

Conduct: While we welcome critiques and criticism of issues, programs, software, we do not tolerate personal attacks, flame baiting, hate speech, racism, sexism, or other anti-social behavior.

Abnormal Behavior: Members who exhibit signs of obsessive compulsive behavior, neurotic behavior, anti-social behavior, destructive behavior, or any abhorrent behavior which would go outside of reasonable standards of decency are asked to seek help. Such destructive activity is not permitted on the site.

Flame Baiting: Flame baiting is the process of drawing individuals into an argument for the sake of arguing. Such conduct is a violation of forum rules and will not be accepted.

Personal Attacks: Any attack that targets a member of the website, specifically, is considered a personal attack and is not permitted.

Vulgarity: Persistent use of vulgarity will not be tolerated. This includes profane content.

Deception: You will post no messages, links, or other content which is knowingly false, misleading, discrediting or purposefully inaccurate.

Harassment: You will harass no member of the website, regardless of their status.

Multiple Accounts: The creation of multiple accounts by the same person is not permitted.

Forum Attacks: Any attack, whether verbal, technical written, video recorded, or otherwise, against WindowsForum.com is not permitted. This includes posting about how terrible the website is, and so forth. Constructive criticism, however, is welcome. There is a marked difference.

Repetition: You will refrain from posting the same thing over and over again. If you do not get an answer to a question, it is quite possible no one knows the answer.

Incoherent Post: Messages that make no sense or are illegible will be subject to deletion.

Post Counting: Do not post messages solely to increase the number of posts you have, nor your standing on the website itself.

Hate Speech: You will post no misogynistic, racist, homophobic, religious content, or other such content which may target any minority or majority of individuals in a hateful or spiteful way.

Argumentative Behavior: While disagreements, constructive criticism, and intellectual debates are welcome, a persistent pattern of argumentative behavior is not. Members who create conditions on the website that are unwelcoming and destructive are not permitted to use the website. This atmosphere of destructive activity is not consistent with the goals or objectives of the website and its services.

Inappropriate Media: Images, pictures, and videos placed on the website by members are deemed to be inappropriate when they contain extremely violent or sexually explicit material that have no redeeming value. By this definition, we determine that such media is inappropriate when they may be construed as offensive, hurtful, inappropriate, or derogatory to a majority of our viewers.

Privacy Statement

The privacy policy described within helps protect all website visitors from the worrisome situation of being concerned of spam or privacy violations. We here at WindowsForum.com take our visitors privacy very seriously. We will never sell your information to third parties, and many privacy options exist in your Control Panel. For more information about your privacy, please see below:

What information do we collect?

We collect information from you when you register on our site, fill out a form or agree to receive e-mails.

When ordering or registering on our site, as appropriate, you may be asked to enter your: name or e-mail address. You may, however, visit our site anonymously.

Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on your site. Google's use of the DART cookie enables it to serve ads to your users based on their visit to your sites and other sites on the Internet. Users may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy..

What do we use your information for?

Any of the information we collect from you may be used in one of the following ways:

• To personalize your experience
(your information helps us to better respond to your individual needs)

• To improve our website
(we continually strive to improve our website offerings based on the information and feedback we receive from you)

• To improve customer service
(your information helps us to more effectively respond to your customer service requests and support needs)

• To process transactions
Your information, whether public or private, will not be sold, exchanged, transferred, or given to any other company for any reason whatsoever, without your consent, other than for the express purpose of delivering the purchased product or service requested.

• To administer a contest, promotion, survey or other site feature

• To send periodic emails

The email address you provide for order processing, will only be used to send you information and updates pertaining to your order. If you decide to opt-in to our mailing list, you will receive emails that may include company news, updates, related product or service information, etc.

Note: If at any time you would like to unsubscribe from receiving future emails, we include detailed unsubscribe instructions at the bottom of each email.

How do we protect your information?

We implement a variety of security measures to maintain the safety of your personal information when you access your personal information.

Do we use cookies?

Yes (Cookies are small files that a site or its service provider transfers to your computer hard drive through your Web browser (if you allow) that enables the sites or service providers systems to recognize your browser and capture and remember certain information

We use cookies to understand and save your preferences for future visits, keep track of advertisements and compile aggregate data about site traffic and site interaction so that we can offer better site experiences and tools in the future. We may contract with third-party service providers to assist us in better understanding our site visitors. These service providers are not permitted to use the information collected on our behalf except to help us conduct and improve our business.

Do we disclose any information to outside parties?

We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information. This does not include trusted third parties who assist us in operating our website, conducting our business, or servicing you, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. We may also release your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect ours or others rights, property, or safety. However, non-personally identifiable visitor information may be provided to other parties for marketing, advertising, or other uses.

Third party links

Occasionally, at our discretion, we may include or offer third party products or services on our website. These third party sites have separate and independent privacy policies. We therefore have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites. Nonetheless, we seek to protect the integrity of our site and welcome any feedback about these sites.

California Online Privacy Protection Act Compliance (COPPAC)

Because we value your privacy we have taken the necessary precautions to be in compliance with the California Online Privacy Protection Act. We therefore will not distribute your personal information to outside parties without your consent.

As part of the California Online Privacy Protection Act, all users of our site may make any changes to their information at any time by logging into their control panel and going to the 'Edit Profile' page.

Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Compliance (COPPA)

We are in compliance with the requirements of COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act), we do not collect any information from anyone under 13 years of age. Our website, products and services are all directed to people who are at least 13 years old or older.

PRISM and other Mass Surveillance Programs Controversies

We do not willfully or knowingly consent to cooperate, in any way, with any unauthorized, unconstitutional, or illegal data collection program or effort initiated by the force of government, in violation of the 4th amendment of the Constitution of the United States.

Your Consent

By using our site, you consent to our online privacy statement and agree to hold harmless the owners and operators of this website for compiling the data you submit, in aggregate form. If you do not agree with this statement, any of the policies of rules declared here within, do not use the website.

Changes to our policies

If we decide to change these policies, we will update the modification date below.

This policy was last modified on:

2nd of August, 2024 (Addendum for AI-based SMS/Text Messaging capability
6th of September, 2017 (Prominent Disclosure Statement for Google Play Mobile Users)
26th of November, 2013 (Creative Commons license updated from v3 to v4)
24th of August, 2013
28th of July, 2013
23rd of June, 2010

If you do not agree with these terms, please do not register or use this Service. If you wish to close your account, please contact us.

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Addendum: WindowsForum.com SMS / MMS Terms of Use

When opted-in, you will receive text messages (SMS/MMS) from WindowsForum.com (aka. Fara Technologies LLC) to your mobile number. These kinds of messages may include account notifications, customer support messages, delivery updates, and marketing & promotional messages.

Message frequency will vary depending on the use case.

You can cancel the messaging service at any time. Just text "STOP" to the phone number. We will send you an SMS message to confirm that you have been unsubscribed successfully. After this, you will no longer receive SMS messages from us. If you want to join again, just sign up as you did the first time and we will start sending SMS messages to you again.

If you are experiencing issues with the messaging program you can reply with the keyword "HELP" for more assistance, or you can get help directly at Contact Us.

Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages.

Message and data rates may apply for any messages sent to you from us and to us from you. If you have any questions about your text plan or data plan, please contact your wireless provider.

If you have any questions regarding privacy, please read our privacy policy.