Microsoft is testing ads in the Windows 11 File Explorer | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft is testing ads in the Windows 11 File Explorer

bleepingcomputer.com

499 pointsDemiGuru503 comments

I worked at Microsoft around the time of the Windows Vista disaster, and one of the big lessons that came out of that era was solve distractions, not discoverability. Windows and other Microsoft products tried to make features (and products) "discoverable" by pushing them on you with alerts and banners, but the result, when multiplied by dozens of product teams and PMs, was an overall user experience that was noisy and unpleasant.

Looks like a new generation of engineers and designers is ready to learn this lesson the hard way again!

I have Windows 10 on my laptop and the other day it forced me to decide on if I wanted to update to Windows 11 or not in a "Now or Never" kind of way before even startup occurred... Even after a reboot, the computer was totally prevented from being useable until I answered the question, so I could not even search to see if it was an exploit, or even if the upgrade was successful for other users with the same model laptop as me.

It's very troubling to me how a device (that I paid a lot of money for mind you) would do this without any sort of courtesy, and in such a disrespectful manner. This is the issue with modern software development, even the things we buy can be suddenly changed at the drop of a dime into a subscription service cash cow for big industry and we'll have no choice of escaping it all. Consumer Protection has failed us totally because they too invested deeply into these extortionist big corporations. The ads will only get worse year after year because it's all shareholder driven, and they will likely lobby other software and hardware manufacturers to not support alternate options like Linux. Good luck everyone.

I feel your pain, and am feeling very disconcerted on my own behalf too, having Win 10 and no plans of upgrading until network externalities positively force me to stop using it (at which point I'll probably give Linux on the Desktop another shot instead of upgrading to Win 11).

But I'm finding it hard to believe that there isn't some escape hatch there. I absolutely cannot imagine that MSFT's corporate customers would play ball with something like that, and they still represent a powerful interest group where MSFT's decision-making is concerned. So there's got to be some escape hatch. Is it a Home vs Pro thing?

You just made me boot into Windows and this is what I saw:

"Microsoft recommentds Windows 11 for your device"

"blablabla it's the best"

"Learn more -- Decline upgrade -- Get it"

Pressing "Decline upgrade" yields a new screen:

"Not sure about Windows 11?"

"blablabla it's the best"

"Skip for now -- Get Windows 11"

And "Skip for now" brings me to my desktop.

I wonder if disabling TPM could be a solution.

Don't worry if you say `never`, it will still offer it to you later....

This is my stance. Luckily my work has moved more and more off of microsoft over the years. I'm not buying a $2000 laptop to watch ads while I'm looking for a file

Mine just updated overnight without asking, after I rejected the update as much as i could. I was perplexed, wondering if the upgrade is being forced in more lenient countries.

Its le nukes time..windows can exist on, inside the vm-box

> they will likely lobby other software and hardware manufacturers to not support alternate options like Linux.

This is not necessary, only a very niche like 1% of computer users use Linux as their primary OS

In the Vista days they at least tried to do the right thing; it was still an era where computers were tools to serve the user, not to exploit/abuse them, most business models were still "sell a thing people need/want at a profit", and the current state of telemetry & ad-related tracking would've still been considered "spyware" and would've led to massive outrage and maybe even legal consequences.

Nowadays, they don't even try to do "the right thing", or at the very least, the meaning of "the right thing" has been corrupted in many parts of the tech industry. "Growth and engagement" is seen as a completely normal and valid business model and pervasive stalking (that would make spyware from a decade ago super jealous) became socially-accepted.

It used to be a tool which they gave you in exchange for money, now it's a platform which both of you share, and where they start messing around with your stuff whichever way they see fit.

You used to buy a desktop which you would take home and sit in front and do your work.

Now you buy a desktop which you take home and you get the seller sit on the other side of it, looking at your work, asking your questions, taking your papers, rearranging everything according to their newest ideas.

It's absolutely horrible.

This is maybe the dominant pattern of bad software design: Writeups describe a good idea, umbrella terms emerge to refer back to it ("discoverability"), and inexperienced designers/engineers try to implement the idea based only on the one-word description and the common knowledge surrounding it, rather than actually learning about the topic it describes. (Maybe they took a corporate learning course on the topic, created by people with similarly inadequate competence on the topic). It's like a game of telephone taken to the logical extreme. They are attempting to use lessons from others' successes, but the end result is even worse than if the designers/engineers used nothing but their own common sense to architect in an information vacuum.

This particular cause of abysmal, insulting UX is common in new teams with no experience among the staff, but there's just no word for how embarrassing it is that Microsoft suffers from it so often too.

Why do you think they don't know this will be annoying but intend to do it anyway to shift revenue sources?

My personal opinion is:

Microsoft told us they see Windows 11 as the "last" version. From now on Windows is a service that pushes continuous updates. The OEM deals are still generating revenue but the strategy shift means no more selling retail upgrades.

It makes total sense that Microsoft would now prioritize adding new revenue sources. I would expect more "parterships", ads, telemetry/tracking, and so forth. The money is just too juicy and Windows is slowly transitioning to be a cost center instead of revenue center which makes the pressure to find revenue even higher. Plus with PC upgrade cycles getting longer and the overall PC market somewhat leveling off (days of 50% yoy growth are long gone) revenue was going to stagnate no matter what.

Microsoft employs a lot of smart people. They know users don't want any of this. The desire to find new revenue is a higher priority. Anyone not on-board with the "Windows client versions are now a 'marketing channel' and 'partnership opportunity'" will leave or find themselves reorg'd to "align business priorities".

Is writing some new feature going to move the needle after the OEMs fill the system up with spyware/adware? It isn't going to increase PC sales by 20% this year so it isn't going to generate more OEM license sales and zzzzzzz (look the VPs already fell asleep during your presentation).

Is fixing bugs going to get kudos, or just create more support tickets as your bug fix accidentally breaks some old garbage "business critical" software relying on the broken behavior? It sure isn't going to sell more copies of Windows since that isn't something MS does anymore.

But putting ads in Explorer and generating $50m in new revenue? Now that will get you a promotion and bonus!

Didn't they say 10 was the last version, too?

> Microsoft told us they see Windows 11 as the "last" version.

Really? It's hard to see how they could say that without getting laughed out of the room, considering they said the same thing about Windows 10.

I don't know why the people hate Vista, but it was my favorite Windows version ever. I like the glowing transparent bars so much in it. It was first, as far as remember. Some KDE window managers also had it but windows's was so much better. I think it is also important, I find it very attractive when the title bars are glowing and transparent.

UAC prompts, driver compatibility issues, and "Windows Vista Capable" branding on a bunch of computers that couldn't actually run Vista properly

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2008/03/the-vista-capable-de...

I love Windows Aero. The "flat" bullshit that came after it is complete garbage.

In other words: the last generation did not train the new one, and usability is expected to suffer.

Also, there are few to no replacements. Because at some point, the last generation decided Windows was the only real OS. Oops!

Well clearly windows is not the only OS, so your thesis seems inaccurate. It's not even the only PC OS, arguably there are 2 serious Desktop OS's, Windows and MacOS. With Linux desktop a very distant 3rd.

On servers there is Linux and Windows Server, with a few minor 3rds (BSD maybe?).

On phones there are 2, 3rd place quit.

In the cloud there are 2 providers in AWS and Azure. With Google a distant 3rd.

Are you spotting a trend? Seems like each platform will support 2 to 3 players, usually with one dominant, one subordinate, and possibly one or two also-rans.

When the platform is new there's lots of variety, but as the sector matures so the 2 winners emerge.

Turns out that OSs are only as good as their developer community, and developers will support 1 or 2 platforms, not more. So 3rd place exists on scraps with few users and fewer developers.

This has nothing to do with what a generation decides - each platform has a winner and a follower, and little else.

To change the OS you have to change the platform, or invent a new one. Or maybe 2nd can overtake first (chrome over firefox/ie) but examples of that are rare.

So don't be blaming a generation, the players are just the players - the game is the game.

To be fair, the new generation has no respect for the old one. Oh, you're a software engineer in your late 30s? Gross.

I don't think that's really fair. I know enough former Microsoft employees and was one long ago enough to know that they don't really listen to us unless we're the team that designed it.

Removing the start button was a classic example, and there is or was plenty of unrest in the walls of Microsoft around all the data being collected.

I am more than confident there are 10s of thousands of employees that are either resigned in disappointment or actively annoyed at what Microsoft has done here with these ads, just like the Skydrive ads before them.

Disclosure: worked for Microsoft a long time ago. My views, obviously, do not reflect their values.

> In other words: the last generation did not train the new one, and usability is expected to suffer.

Probably is the case, however, a learned lesson sticks better than a taught lesson. Or at least that's my hypothesis as to why our industry ends up operating in a cycle of relearning past lessons.

Have a look at the adobe acrobat interface, I can't believe how complicated it is, and often comes up with prompts, side menus, adverts for other versions, and a tiny space to actually view your file.

I regret that the computing experience in 2022 has to be so atrocious. But it is necessary to understand that general computing has its limit when the user does not want to make the effort to have independence [to educate themselves on the operation of a von Neumann machine].

There is a whole GNU/Linux ecosystem [as well as a few others], mature and reliable. I even feel sorry for the user who, for one reason or another, prefers to be spoon fed by the Windows system. As you can see, there is a price to pay for the convenience of ignorance [hey, everybody uses Windows!].

Or it may be that general computing, the noble goal of bringing computing for the masses, is just an illusion, and cannot be done without gatekeepers like MS.

So, I'm building a gaming PC for my kids. One of them started playing fortnite with his friends during covid, to keep in touch. He would like it on the gaming PC. Fortnite does not run on Linux. What do you suggest? If it helps, I have been personally running linux since 2002 or so, starting with Slackware, then Gentoo, then back and forth from Arch to Ubuntu. I am a developer and use linux daily. I would love to hear what I should use instead of windows.

"I regret that the computing experience in 2022 has to be so atrocious."

The industry builds what the industry wants.

It's very charitable to assume that they just don't understand. Personally I think they understand perfectly well that ads reduce the value of their offering but don't care because money.

Indeed, value for whom?

today a new stupid applet appeared on the taskbar, and it defaulted to italian, picking up language from the location (without even asking permission to geolocate me first!) instead of my os language.

it's not just the nagware, the whole system experience is shit because it's so inconsistent.

I run a english language / italian keyboard, and every update it decides to reset my keyboard to english layout.

search results are still this bad, with unrelated results shadowing good matches: https://i.imgur.com/uJY7uCJ.png

windows security often gives me a notification. the notification say: "no action needed"

it's like they just put interns in cages and set them to program away, building stuff for the sake of accounting new lines of codes.

I wished a lot more companies would learn that lesson. It is such a pain when you have to use some software and then you get the popups about new features. The features may be brilliant, but right now I don't care. I am doing something.

Yet somehow PMs never realize that if they let the features be visible in the corner, I would click on them in 10 seconds when I am done with what I am doing and would actually want to read them.

Looking at you, Google Maps.

No, I don't need an "easier way to do X, Y" or whatever else your obtuse program manager decided would get them a promotion.

I'm operating a 2-ton vehicle in traffic, so THE EASIER WAY would be to not obscure 50% of my phone screen, making me take eyes away from the road for an extra 2-3 seconds.

Hint for anyone reading this at google - it's in the name. Maps. That's all I want from your app, UNLESS I am specifically searching for Food/Hotels/Groceries. Also, please stop doing a UI redesign every year.

No, I don't need a pop-up if you want to reroute me around an accident. If it's faster - just reroute me, if it's not - don't.

Problem here is that purpose of Google Maps is completely divergent between users and Google.

For example Food/Hotels/Groceries is an ideal place to show ads - which is the primary actual purpose of Google Maps as far as Google is concerned.

The main problem is that if the company's model is "growth and engagement", the objective of the company is for you to "engage" with them (and look at the ads or whatever dark pattern they're pushing). It is not to help you accomplish whatever task you were trying to do with their product. The "product", if it's there, is merely a necessary evil to convince the users to "engage" with it.

The PM couldn't care less about whether it interrupts your flow - he just knows that interrupting the flow of millions of people will net them that next promotion and a nice "increased engagement by double-digit percentages" bullet point on the resume. The company executives don't care either, because they know that boasting about the increased engagement figures will make their stock price go up.

By the time the degraded experience causes actual repercussions for the company (if it ever does - it won't if they've got a monopoly), both the aforementioned PM and executives will be long gone and will already have cashed out.

Your reading of the situation is wrong.

Vista broke 30% market share meaning that MS can push terrible UX and get away with it. Further, in the Vista era there was a more palpable reduction in performance that doesn't seem to be happening.

MS has made their calculation, and it may lead to more revenue.

> Looks like a new generation of engineers and designers is ready to learn this lesson the hard way again!

Nah, it's just some manager who needs a pay raise.

I had a laptop that came with Windows Vista and I don't remember it being full of distractions. Granted, perhaps the OEM turned them all off.

Neither Vista nor 7 had any distractions. Except for the games like Minesweeper.

> tried to make features (and products) "discoverable" by pushing them on you with alerts and banners, but the result, when multiplied by dozens of product teams and PMs, was an overall user experience that was noisy and unpleasant.

Did you say alexa?

> Looks like a new generation of engineers and designers is ready to learn this lesson the hard way again!

You mean product managers? I’m not sure what engineers and designers have to do with this. My guess is that they know it’s stupid, tried to shut it down and failed.

This is tangental to the topic, but we must create a notion of Obligation in society to both actively teach and learn from those who have gone before us.

this pretty much describes why I couldn’t stand that Windows era and strongly preferred my Mac instead. It was like it was designed to be anti-focus

And before that there was clippy...

Sounds like Windows users are unpaid beta testers.

How is this related to ads?

I look forward to the Microsoft brigade telling me again that none of the following exists:

  - ads in file explorer
  - ads on the lockscreen
  - ads as notifications
  - ads in the start menu
  - ads in the "change file association" dialog
  - ads in the apps (e.g. solitaire)
  - mandatory updates that cannot be disabled and reboot your machine without asking
  - pc turning itself on in the middle of the night OR when in my backpack to install updates
  - un-disableable spyware ("telemetry")

Windows would be classed as malware by the 2002 definition

>> Windows would be classed as malware by the 2002 definition

Literally. And adware by the mid-00's definition. Like, I can't understand why they'd do this. I really can't. What a joke. Do people still work on the Windows project who are proud of what they do anymore?

You gotta think, there's an actual team of real, live, people at Microsoft who decided that getting paid enough would be worth it to put this shit in and degrade millions and millions of people's daily experiences using their software.

If I ever become that person, may I rot. I just could never see selling out to that level and living with myself.

Honestly I imagine the people working on Windows have drank the Kool-aid. They think this is what people want. The ads are “relevant suggestions”. Pre installed Candy crush is “awesome, everyone wants that!”. Telemetry to them is “learning about the users needs”. And there’s a grain of truth in all of these.

It's always been a mystery to me who these users are, the ones that do not care about the VD that comes pre-installed with OEM's or with the OS itself. But working with support has taught me that a lot of people really have no idea where the OS ends and third party apps begins. Candy crush pre-installed? Must be part of Windows.

I guess they do not think of those as "ads" but more like suggestions, or tips to the user. (Not defending it, they would be clearly doing mental gymnastics if that were the case -- they absolutely are ads.) If they said the word "ad", they'd be referring to content from 3rd parties.

Even more specifically they're upsells, which of course are kind of advertisements.

> Windows would be classed as malware by the 2002 definition

People don't care about malware, except for those malwares that rip their bank account off.

Does anyone make a serious OS for people who need to get real work done on their computer anymore?

Some recent frustrations with the big 3 OSs:

1. MacOS: The File>Save dialog has a unchangeable 35 character limit for what can be viewed in the file name field. WTF?! It's like these jokers have never worked in a real office where people create documents with dictated naming conventions like [Customer Name]_[Project Name]_[Project subtask]-[Date]. Maybe they think it is a way to force businesses to use Tags? Dear Apple, your OS seems toy like.

2. Linux: There is an age old Ubuntu bug (which bleeds into many Ubuntu based Distributions) where the installer wipes out the bootloader of a drive that you aren't even installing the OS on. Dear open source community: your desktop OSs are still hobbyist tweaker mode. I

3. Windows: First data mining telemetry and now you are going to show me ads? Dear MS, you keep trying to be Google or Facebook and all it has done is undermine a once serious OS.

(note that this is just a "what pissed me off this week list" and not intended to be a comprehensive criticism)

May I kindly ask what distro you last tried?

I ask mainly because I came to a realization not too long ago that I stopped using Windows back when 7 was released. It's been a bumpy road, but my last few installs in the past half-decade were more for fun (spring cleaning) or trying out a new distro, and not because I borked my system running errant commands.

Especially if you're not using bleeding edge hardware, almost all things just work.

I know you'll bring up the usual refrains of "hey how about that hibernate function in linux?" or "how are your video drivers lately?", and while they're all legitimate points, Windows has got its own fair share of "wtfs" that Windows users are all too quick to gloss over.

Maybe I'm being a bit of an old man here (mid-30s), but I remember booting into a fresh XP install and having nothing work properly. No video drivers, no ethernet, no wifi, no sound... it usually led to a full day of installing drivers. You'll probably say Windows is better now, and it probably is. Again, I just haven't used Windows in over a decade.

I don't remember the last time I logged into a fresh linux install and didn't have ethernet.

Linux Mint wiped out the boot loader on my Intel MacBook even though I was installing it on an external drive. I'm much older and agree that some modern Linux distributions are smoother than old-school Windows. I am just pointing out that Linux still requires a lot of unnecessary time suck due to it being in the "hobbyist tweaker" category.

Im trying to switch and my Ubuntu install on a 8 series Intel laptop keeps the cpu freq stuck at 800mhz. If I manually change the governor’s min freq it goes up, but it’s not dynamic. Sadness. Updated to the latest mainline kernel and no luck. These are basic things that should work by now. But hey, I’m not contributing to the project and I’m not paying for it so I can’t complain much. Just unfortunate that I can’t start using the system without having to spend hours figuring this out

This reminds me... I've experienced a fresh install of Windows not having Ethernet more times than on Linux....

Most truly serious professionals I know are either using macOS with Homebrew or Arch Linux. They’ve accepted they need to take managing their OS into their own hands because anyone else will bungle the job. They spend a few weeks to learn their OS’ internals in depth and then rarely lose significant time troubleshooting issues in the future.

Most truly serious professionals I know are using Windows 10 or 11 on a work provided Lenovo/HP or Dell laptop.

> Arch Linux

Seriously?

1. Paid apps normally support Ubuntu out of box, but it's rarely a case for Arch. AUR is not a "professional" place at any senses.

2. Arch is a rolling distro that breaks completely randomly. Major breakages are introduced by both the distro and upstreams.

Ah I knew that there would be an Arch user somewhere around here. Meanwhile I've used Ubuntu for over a decade with virtually zero issues and during that decade Arch users both newb and old have continued to declare there is only one true OS and that I'm doing it wrong while I tell them "I'm glad you enjoy your OS"

I can learn MacOS or Arch "internals in depth" -- even the proprietary stuff in MacOS -- in "a few weeks?"

I'm glad I use an OS where I don't have to know the internals.

We don't have the same "serious professional" bubble.

I've never seen any colleague, customer, or supplier get provided anything other than a Windows laptop.

Engineering is the art of solving problem within constraints ;)

Jokes aside, every O/S essentially needs periodic maintenance, in the form of workarounds, that needs to be applied on every major update. That's just how it works - O/Ss and hardware became too complex to get a handle.

I've found that Linux distros require a lot of work upfront, and relatively little every couple of years (assuming a distro with an LTS release schedule).

I think Mac is similar, except that the work upfront is considerably less.

I'm also familiar with Windows, but I frankly find new developments very offensive, in particular, those on Windows 11, so I ended up sticking with a relatively untweaked Window 10 (used only for specific use cases, thankfully).

The only solution in order to have a very stable system, is to choose a platform and stick with it. Given the ease of switch, I do see engineers switching machine and O/S, illuding themselves of finding a more stable experience, and ending up instead with a lot "upfront" work each time, without managing to stabilize the system.

Been using Linux Mint as primary driver for over a year now. It works flawlessly. I have _zero_ patience for debugging and tweaking my OS. I want to work, not tweak Linux. I used to love tweaking back in Ubuntu 7 Feisty Fawn. Now that I'm in my 30s I don't give a shit.

Take this as a glowing endorsement of Linux Mint. Try it. You won't waste time with bullshit.

I agree that Mint is pretty good. I use it on a few older laptops with decent results, but Mint also wiped out the Boot loader on my Intel MacbookPro :(

I love Linux Mint. The only bullshit I had was having to recompile the kernal for my gpu

> There is an age old Ubuntu bug (which bleeds into many Ubuntu based Distributions) where the installer wipes out the bootloader of a drive that you aren't even installing the OS on

Can you link bug report? Personally I never encountered it (and while I had some corruptions over time I would say that Windows is even worse here and I would not call it to be in hobbyist tweaker mode)

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1229...

This link talks in detail about the problem and its solutions (all of which were more time suck than I was willing to commit): https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=287353

I've encountered a couple of times. In my case it screwed up the bootloader of a hackintosh macOS install on a drive the installer gave no indication it was going to do anything to.

Thankfully fixing it wasn't too bad, but it shouldn't have happened in the first place. No other distro I've installed shares this problem.

> Linux: There is an age old Ubuntu bug (which bleeds into many Ubuntu based Distributions) where the installer wipes out the bootloader of a drive that you aren't even installing the OS on. Dear open source community: your desktop OSs are still hobbyist tweaker mode. I

Never saw that happen on any Linux installation (mostly using Debian, with one Arch Linux instance to avoid getting to accustomed to the Debian Way, though).

What I often saw once I still dual-booted Windows 7 and (IIRC) OpenSUSE ~11-14 years ago was that Windows destroyed the Linux bootloader entry, while on Linux GRUB + os-detect automatically setup one for Linux and Windows, so I always had to install Windows first and then Linux as else stuff was broken due to Windows not caring about existing user data at all.

Same story with USB pen drives, once I used a FAT formatted one on Linux and then plugged it into Windows it always had "format drive" selected by default, mounting was a slightly hidden menu entry (so it could read it just fine, it rather was a bad UX pattern)

I mean, you can do an OS yourself, or you can learn how to use an existing OS, I use Gentoo GNU/Linux and do things manually, never got the boot driver wiped as I do the partitioning myself, and also do the partitioning when I use some more userfriendly distros (on my work laptop because compiling on laptops is not nice so I won't use gentoo there). But yeah I mean you complain a lot, but for OSX and Windows you have no chance of resolving your issues, on linux you just need to be capable and willing to understand and read some documentation and you're good to go, but it seems that in your situation you're the main problem, because unwilling to be restricted by proprietary systems but also unwilling to learn, so it seems like we need to make an OS built on your preference while you just "want to get work done", why should we do that? Be restricted or learn to learn

>on linux you just need to be capable and willing to understand and read some documentation

If it were really as simple as reading the official documentation, then yeah, I'd concede this point. The reality is that finding the correct solution to a (non-corner case) problem is a spaghetti splat mess of links all over the internet with no guarantee that they are the answer you need.

I have been doing this stuff for more decades than many on this site have been alive so I am capable of dealing with some arcane shit. BUT I know all too well the value of time and Linux is still in the "hobbyist tweaker" category. I'll use it for some things, but I am looking for a Desktop OS that I can actually do work on, not kill time tweaking.

The issue on linux is that the software you need for your business doesnt run on it. This one you cannot fix yourself.

Since most "software" is now a web page, that problem is slowly getting solved by the industry.

Show me a high quality cad software for Linux.

Absolute bugger no. Freecad is the best, and it's pretty bad.

Fair enough, but I think that there are either alternatives, but also this was no the issue listed, the issue listed is like very easily solvable, I think the solution might even be on the getting started / installation guide of most distributions

If the worst thing about macOS is that there's a text field you have to scroll to see all of its contents, I'd say the OS is pretty serious.

For some reason padding has been growing over the last few releases of macOS, and font sizes too, which means that things with long titles are now truncated everywhere ...

I remember when we Mac users made fun of DOS with their 8 char file names (HFS supported 32).

Now we can have even longer filenames, but macOS only shows them truncated...

I beg you to create a bunch of files with >35 char names and then try to work with them. I bet you'll be looking at all that wasted blank space before and after the text box and wanting to scream WTF at the dev team that lets this obnoxious user experience stand.

Sure they do. You can get a long term Windows version which receives only critical updates. Or you can get one of the multitudes of Linux distros.

LTSC is almost impossible to buy legitimately for individuals

Tell me about it. I tried to source LTSC with an MS partner for a while, you basically need a volume licensing setup to get anywhere. It was hinted you could get away with 1 LTSC license and 4 cheap CALS to fill in the volume requirement but then I questioned why I was jumping through Microsofts arbitrary licensing hoops just to run a less horrible version of the OS.

For years I've been customising Windows installs towards that state with hacky scripts and PE environments. It's the near perfect distribution of windows for me, kept just tantalisingly out of reach.

Just download an iso online and use a KMS activator server. Takes 5 minutes and Microsoft is a 2 trillion dollar company.

> 2. Linux: There is an age old Ubuntu bug (which bleeds into many Ubuntu based Distributions) where the installer wipes out the bootloader of a drive that you aren't even installing the OS on. Dear open source community: your desktop OSs are still hobbyist tweaker mode.

Maybe that's true, but ...

I had a very similar thing happen on Windows 10. I set up a new SSD in order to install a new version of Windows with the idea that I would switch out the old SSD to an external drive.

No big deal. So, I installed Windows on the new drive. Set everything up. Life looked good. I removed the old SSD.

And the system wouldn't boot. WTF?!?!

Turns out that if there is already a Windows bootloader then the Windows installer will put your boot information on it even if you tell it otherwise. You can't force an install and bootloader onto a new drive if it detects an existing install anywhere.

I had to remove the old drive, remformat the new drive, and completely reinstall so Windows would install the boot partition and boot loader properly.

I was "rather cross" to quote my UK brethren.

Most enterprises are using AD domain or Azure AD joined Windows 10 or 11 PCs. With an IT admin that tries to turn off as much that crap as possible. + Office 365 for email, Teams, Office apps etc.

Linux on the desktop is not really doable. Why? GPO/Intune polices. Interoperability with other companies/customers.

Same for Mac. JAMF or Intune MDM would need to be added.

Linux Mint. Sure, you will have some quirks with any Linux distro if you install on a Macbook (blame Apple), but it is by far the easiest to use, most well supported "productivity" distro I have ever used.

Then stop using Ubuntu. But, to be fair, the whole Ubuntu/Debian installation scene is quite a facepalm. The installer is overly complicated and completely undocumented. Also, they didn't really account for any serious customization.

>But, to be fair, the whole Ubuntu/Debian installation scene is quite a facepalm.

Compared to what? Arch?

Yes, the 3 "real OS"es are: Gentoo (high skill cap, high payoff), Arch (medium skill cap, high payoff), and Void (arch minus systemd plus a nicer package manager). Everything else is opinionated / dumbed down enough to be in the same quality bucket as windows, I usually think of Canonical and Microsoft as the same company these days.

One issue I have with macOS is their dialog navigation. Whenever I get the dialog like saving change dialog in Preview when using Command + Q combo, I cannot use my arrow keys to move to the lower/next button in the dialog. I have to use my mice like a peasant! It is not an issue in Linux and Windows, just curious why Apple can't add that?

You need to enable it: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204434 > ‘Use your keyboard like a mouse’.

The last tike I installed an OS myself, before Ubuntu and a new, clean Windows on my laptops, was Windows 2000. Ubuntu was actually easier to get running on the daily driver then a clean, local account only Windows 10 on the back up. No problems with Ubuntu whatsoever, not sure how much of that is due to Ubuntu or Lenovo so.

To be realistic: Windows and MacOS are both great for getting "real work done".

I've never had an issue with this "35 character file save prompt" limit, and I cannot imagine it would be a dealbreaker even if I did.

Telemetry is irrelevant to getting "real work" done, assuming its implemented in a way which doesn't impact performance, and I've never had an issue on Windows. What you're talking about is privacy concerns, which are very, very legitimate; and have nothing to do with "real work".

Some things are more productive in Mac, others are more productive in Windows. I'll die on this hill: Microsoft Paint is a top 5 productivity application for me. If I need to quickly take an image, layer a second image on top of it, resize, and add some text; there's nothing more productive than Paint for that. The result looks like shit, but its productive. The ability to hit Win+Shift+S, screenshot a part of the screen, then immediately paste it somewhere? Huge. MacOS has nothing like this; it has all the same basic tools, but they don't tie together to enable the same velocity; even the screen clipping tool takes like 5 seconds for the image to leave the screen corner and hit the filesystem. Notepad is another example; I open notepad and can immediately start typing. On MacOS, I can open Notes, CMD+N to get a new note, it defaults to formatting for the title but at least that works; or you can do TextEdit, and you're presented with a "create a new document" dialog; no thanks. Little moments which add up.

But where does MacOS pull ahead? If I need to edit a video? Windows has nothing for me; maybe DaVinci, but its hyper-pro level tooling. iMovie is great, and years ago I splurged on the buy-once-and-done FCPX subscription: its fantastic. Photo editing beyond what Paint can do? No, I'm not paying $200/month for Photoshop; maybe you can try GIMP, but I'm using my $20 og Pixelmator purchase from a decade ago, it works great (ugh I guess I should support them and buy the new one). All the UNIX tooling of course. Need some light CAD? I love Shapr3D; and I'm super happy to see its coming to Windows soon, but traditionally its been an Apple-only thing. In short: MacOS owns Prosumer-tier software; Pro-Pro tier stuff tends to be on Windows+Mac (like, Adobe), but there's a ton of cool software right below that which is Mac-only.

Linux is the one OS where I have broad issues getting work done. If I'm developing a website or a web app? Sure, it works as good as anything else (better than Windows to be fair). But go beyond that and there are dragons. A juxtoposition of trying to make mediocre web apps or libre software work for workloads which should be native. CAD? No Fusion360, no Shapr3D... Tinkercad I guess? Vectary, kinda ok. LibreCAD, I'm sure was productive in 1997. Spreadsheet guru? Calc & Google Sheets have come a long way, but they're still in another realm compared to Excel; but I'm a big personal fan of Numbers, as it doesn't try to be Excel and instead serves a slightly different kind of user.

> The ability to hit Win+Shift+S, screenshot a part of the screen, then immediately paste it somewhere? Huge. MacOS has nothing like this

Ctrl+Shift+Cmd+4 (default shortcut, you can change it to Cmd+Shift+S, if you wish)

>I've never had an issue with this "35 character file save prompt" limit, and I cannot imagine it would be a dealbreaker even if I did.

I have worked at or consulted for hundreds of clients from SMB to the world's largest enterprises and the majority would have a major worker uprising on their hands if they had to deal with a 35 character limit to easily working with document names. Please try to work with a handful documents with names that exceed 35 characters and you will get it.

There are multiple ways to solve the bootloader issue, but the easiest is putting your Linux drive ahead of your Windows drive in firmware settings, during installation.

Windows will absolutely blast your boot sector/UEFI partition with no concern for other OSes (it won't chain load). Mac avoids this with Bootcamp, which is more similar to firmware than an OS.

I'm surprised the parent comment has this issue. They are either using BIOS, or the automatic disk mode (and just complained about the installer doing things automatically on their disk). Avoiding this scenario is UEFI is as simple as creating a exFAT partition and mounting it to /boot. Any calamares-based installer will let you do that.

What I found was that you could remove the other drive. That won't work on an Intel MacBook though...

Linux with eg OpenBSD CWM with xterms.

Microsoft, if you're listening; Ads in Windows, is what pushed me to leave. I have no intention of ever returning. Ads in the tools that I use for my work are unacceptable.

I'm pretty sure Microsoft is operating under the assumption that everyone who could quit Windows has done so already. Sadly most of the world lacks the technical knowledge (for Linux) or money (for Mac) to make a switch, and on the corporate side Windows is pretty much a mandate, so what can the end user even do?

WSL was a clear push to get developers to use Windows by giving them the best of both worlds. Similarly virtual desktops and snap layouts supposedly got a whole lot better with Windows 11, and those are clearly power user features. So some teams at Microsoft clearly care.

As usual Microsoft doesn't show a clear direction, unless that direction is infighting.

Agree, for the average end-user switching is still difficult. I do think for some of the more technically oriented ones (some gamers, etc...) it may be possible.

I never expected Microsoft to put ads in their products, let alone such a productivity-oriented tool.

For me, MSFT was the last standing giant that was not going to do it. And yet...

I guess I was too naive :(

I pretty much grew up on Windows. I don't hate it or MS, but over time it was clear, their interests and mine were diverging.

Yes. It feels unprofessional.

> Ads in the tools that I use for my work are unacceptable.

why you working with the home edition then?

I'm not. I wasn't waiting around to see how far they will push it.

Why are you assuming that they're using the home edition?

That and Linux gaming

Indeed. Now, I'm trying to get the gamers that I know to switch.

I solely use Windows 11 at home right now and can even take ads in Solitaire or something, but placing ads in system tools is a red line for me. I'd have to move to Linux again if this becomes true with no way of disabling it by officially supported methods, and do some of my current desktop development for Windows in a virtual machine.

Apropos Solitaire, what made me laugh:

https://imgur.com/a/OEAlctw

Absolutely no self-awareness there.

I think it's the shitness of the ads in Solitaire, those very low quality "You won't believe how she looks now". Pure scraping of the barrel.

I wouldn't mind if I got punted ads for stuff like coffee or Philips LED lights. Fortunately I've been able to block Solitaire's worst offenders, the ones for those lootbox games that play at the highest volume possible. And you can't even mute them permanently because each new one that pops up somehow creates a new "Application" in the Volume Mixer.

Adding ads to Solitaire was really the start of darkness for post-Vista Microsoft.

Yes, Windows 8 had a lot of bad UX decisions, but those were well-meaning, if totally misguided. Ripping out the (excellent) Windows 10 Solitaire in exchange for the ad-filled monstrosity that was Microsoft Solitaire collection was just malicious.

It's not malicious - it's capitalist.

I can't even internet with ads. dns blocking, ublock origin and other things. I can't understand why others even put up with all the crap. I've gotten one too many viruses from on-page advertising where I've had to wipe and reinstall.

These type of "ads" can already be disabled by turning of "Tips and suggestions" in the System->Notification settings.

You've already got Ads in your start bar though?

That's just unacceptable. I'm glad I left Microsoft products behind at the end of the Windows 7 era. Linux on the desktop for years now.

Wine is getting pretty good. If I really have to run a Windows executable, I can.

I'm even developing something that has to work cross-platform. I compile in Rust with

    --target x86_64-pc-windows-gnu

and test under Wine. Had to get some bugs fixed in a few low level crates for that to work, but now I can do Vulkan graphics in the Windows executable running under Wine. There's still a problem with Tracy profiling with cross-compile, but it's a package level build script problem.

Same here. I was done after Windows 7 for linux.

I would say I can't believe they are doing this but I can completely believe they are doing this.

I remember how much I liked Windows 2000 and then they had to "fix" it.

I was reasonably happy with the NT 3.51 -> Windows 2000 -> Windows 7 line of Microsoft products. I skipped Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows XP. By Windows 7, Microsoft had finally figured out how to make it work, had dumped much of the DOS-era code, and had the consumer and pro versions unified into something good.

It's been downhill since then. Ads, subscriptions, and trying to make desktops look like phones.

Windows 7 is still 12% of the installed base, and that's not counting the ones that don't phone home to Redmond.

I tried to do that a year ago, but the problem was my PC froze (full lock up, even mouse pointer is frozen) regularly. I didn't know how to even start troubleshooting a thing like that so I left to Win10 again (was Linux Mint btw).

I've experienced Cinnamon on Linux Mint crashing (leaving the display frozen), but it was possible to go do a tty with ctrl+alt+functionkey (each of f1-f6 goes to a different tty, f7 goes back to the display) and manually restart it. But this hasn't happened to me in the last couple months, so it's probably fixed.

Then I've had some full freezes where precisely nothing at all works, but those happen very rarely and I wouldn't be surprised if that's a hardware problem.

Then there's full RAM. Yes, linux still hasn't figured out how to not flop on its head dead when RAM fills up; though usually the mouse pointer isn't immediately frozen.

> I didn't know how to even start troubleshooting a thing like that

Reading the system logs is always a good place to start.

Wow. And the Audacity of Microsoft to use the warning icon next to the ad:

https://mobile.twitter.com/flobo09/status/150264586620470477...

Soon that's how Microsoft apps will look like - https://blog.malwarebytes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Ad8...

The way Twitter displays post images in itself is also terrible UI...

Try Nitter instead

https://nitter.net/flobo09/status/1502645866204704773

No need to login either.

I have seen

https://github.com/SimonBrazell/privacy-redirect

linked here so I use it.

Plenty of room for improvement here. Soon Windows will read filenames and show ads based on them. Then it will read your pdf files and let advertisers bid on keywords in those files. Windows 13 will watch the cursor movements, analyze it and book doctor appointment behind your back (billable to your insurance).

Funny that you used the word "audacity", which actually appears as a folder in the screenshot :)

;)

Wow indeed. That’s incredibly slimy.

I’ve been noticing this for a while, but I no longer “own” my devices. I’m buying the product and continually paying for it with my attention. Everything I have can be taken away.

Empty spaces filled with ads, telemetry with zero opt-out, data watched by thousands of eyes, DRM for home appliances.

At what point will people do something about this? I have a feeling that even though all of us use technology for hours every day, only a few have even a basic understanding of what they are doing. Everyone else isn’t even aware of what’s happening and blindly click away their rights.

Don’t misinterpret my comment as approving of this behavior. But it just occurred to me that this is a societal issue not a tech issue. We have billboards on the highway, on buildings, before computers we had tv in the home that pushed ads. So really this is just tech catching up.

70% of the population is overweight, if people can’t bother to care about their body / health then why would they care about being spied on by telemetry or denied access to their licensed content via DRM?

It feels shitty to think about, but it seems like this is just a tech extension to some of the flaws in society, rather than a problem that’s unique to tech.

> "if people can’t bother to care about their body / health then"

People would have an easier time of that if there wasn't so much brightly coloured cheap sugar at bargain prices arrayed around the checkout of supermarkets and advertised all over. It obviously works or they wouldn't do it. Pretending it doesn't work and the target/victim is at fault for being influenced by it is awful. If you'd never heard of soda in your life, you wouldn't think to ask "what's the most intensley sugary fizzy acidic liquid I can drink?". If you'd never heard of Pepsi you'd never think to ask "What is the drink of my generation?" or "What is Michael Jordan endorsing? I bet the only reason he's good is his sneaker brand, I need some of those".

It's the situation of the bully standing in front of you, facing you, walking backwards, pointing at you, calling you names, poking you in the chest, pausing so you have to stop moving to avoid tripping up, pretending to spit at you so you wince, then laughing, sidestepping in step with you so you can't dodge them, interrupting your conversation with your friends and it's all fine and socially accepted - as long as you're a sufficently virtuous Ayn Rand libertarian this won't annoy or frustrate you. If it does and you retaliate, ever, in any circumstances (and it will be there when you are weakest, tiredest, most desperate, waiting) then HAH! Gotcha! you're inferior, clearly you just 'can't be bothered' to take the high road and now we can righteously take your money because you fell for temptation so we earned it.

And literally nobody will say anything in your defence because Calories In / Calories Out and I'm All Right, Jack, fuck you got mine, worksforme won'tfix. They'd have to have, you know, empathy.

> I no longer “own” my devices. (...) At what point will people do something about this?

Depends on person, I upgraded from Windows 7 to Lubuntu for example because Windows 8 appeared to be unacceptably bad.

Some sort of combined hardware and software consortium that specializes in devices that are repairable, DRM-free, etc. is the only solution I can think of, and even then they'd have to fend off entryism from established players (like when Microsoft subverted standards bodies to get their very proprietary document standard declared as open and not proprietary).

MS with the file explorer ads, Apple with settings ads, Samsung with its TV ads. They've normalised ads in paid software.

> Apple with settings ads

Say more?

Apple bends its own rules by using push notifications to promote Apple Music: https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/18/18229492/apple-music-push...

Apple sends push notification advertising Emmy nominations: https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/07/15/apple-sends-unsol...

Apple caught spamming iPhone 12 owners with free Apple Arcade offers: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2020/10/28/apple-arcade-free-o...

Apple is advertising its monthly iPhone installment plan in the Wallet app: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2019/12/16/iphone-financing-wa...

They probably think that the section in the iCloud subscription settings about what the product costs and what it provides is "settings ads".

I believe they are referring to Apple’s encouragement to sign up to/in to iCloud within the Settings app on iOS, suggesting that this is an ‘ad’ on a par with the Microsoft ad shown in the OP.

I might guess they are referring to the Apple Pay signup, the Apple TV and Apple Arcade promotions which show up as settings notifications.

I think they’re referring to the upsell of iCloud. If you’re not subscribed to even the $1 tier or wherever, there is a line under the iCloud menu item to upgrade. I don’t think it’s especially egregious but some might have a different opinion.

They're probably talking about notifications probing you to add your card to Apple Wallet.

I'm not sure if you get them if you never touch Apple Wallet, I always get them when I transfer to a new phone or reset my current phone and need to setup my cards again before they can fully transfer.

It's annoying, but never felt it was comparable to Microsoft.

https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/apple-is-put...

I got near-daily ads for Safari on Mojave. Pretty good OS, but that just drove me straight up the wall...

    !!! Street signs, right into your bedroom !!!

I can't help but see the end of a cycle here.

My favourite is when you open the Galaxy Store on a flagship Samsung phone and a popup with a promoted game is shoved in your face every single time.

The popup will often have a 3 second delay before it interrupts you due to the performance issues of their ad servers, so you open the app store and just wait there for the inevitable popup to appear before you can dismiss it to continue using the app.

The "Get news and special offers" option is disabled in the app, but none of that matters, the popup ads at app start are there on all Samsung Galaxy devices I've tested.

You mean a 3rd-party Android manufacturer bundles bloatware?!?!

All sarcasm aside I really don't understand why anyone would voluntarily use a Samsung phone.

I have an S21 and honestly have no issues with it. Never seen any ads either. I don't use the galaxy store though(no idea what it's for tbh, it's not like you're forced to use it). As to "why" - it's extremely nice hardware, on par or better than most iPhones in my opinion, it "just works" day in day out.

I think the notion of Samsung phones having terrible bundled apps and janky UI might be outdated. Samsung phones got better than the previous "stock ROM" kings (Pixels and OnePluses come to mind).

MKBHD talked about this recently, https://youtu.be/qWIkBMNKj1s?t=614 timestamp included. I do not own a Samsung phone, so I can't speak to the amount of ads, but it seems they were not sleeping all these years and made the experience a benchmark for other android-flavored phones.

They became solid, somehow boring and just work. Feel free to correct me, it is just a thought.

Well, if I'm looking to buy an Android phone with the latest specs, then it's either a Pixel, Samsung or OnePlus. Out of those, I guess Pixels are less bloaty than any other phones, except if preinstalled Google apps are 'bloaty'. And there's always an option to bootloader unlock and install LineageOS.

What do you use? I currently use a pixel 2 and when it craps out I'd like to try something different.

Other than a Librem or PinePhone, what else would you suggest?

Shrug. They're fine. It's not hard to ignore that stuff. Honestly Apple's constant iCloud storage notifications are more annoying than pop-ups in the Galaxy Store you'll probably never visit anyways.

Are there other options? I want wireless charging and under $600, and there is basically nothing except Samsung or no-name brands.

The delay is intentional, so that you tap "Accept" on the popup which appears just under your thumb as you were about to tap something else.

This is nonsensical, I am a pretty big Microsoft advocate, but there is no need in this. Whatever bonehead in Microsoft thought of this should be fired.

That would be Nadella. He has major Google envy.

> I am a pretty big Microsoft advocate

That is why they keep doing this. Despite Microsoft's past, it seems like you still advocate for them. This would be like someone still advocating for Hitler.

There's currently a land war in Europe, adjacent to Poland. Let's not reductio-ad-hitlerem operating system adverts.

What does being a Microsoft Advocate entail exactly?

I really like Windows, Azure and O365 and believe they have no real competition, especially when paired together. I can install Ubuntu or other Linux distros on my Windows PC, connect to my Azure VM or container easily and O365 is just simply unmatched, as hard as others try. So I advocate Azure and O365 especially and am harshly critical of Apple/Google. Microsoft generally handles the cloud aspect very well but seems still a bit lost on the OS side. Which is a bit insane to me, especially when sales skyrocketed during COVID, and Windows 11 is generally pretty solid at this point.

how exactly does Azure have no competition?

I have to use Azure at work, and in my experience it's a worse version of AWS/GCP:

  - standard MS random indecipherable errors in the GUI (error 0x68482233: consult system administrator)
  - extremely slow UI performance in the GUI
  - extremely slow VM performance running their OS (even though it has 4 VCPUs, 32gb of RAM and a giant SSD)

it's a standard MS product, one where they (badly) copy the features of their competitors, and it only sells because they bundle it with their other crappy products which your company is already locked into

What I can’t help notice about o365 is that the web versions are less buggy and more stable and are catching up in feature completeness. Desktop outlook needs to be purged with fire. This makes me wonder for how long it will be necessary to use Windows to get the full o365 experience.

Not a Microsoft Advocate, a Microsoft advocate.

This has the potential to become a serious security risk. Picture the following - you're running File Explorer with admin creds, all while invoking a malvertisement.

FYI: these are in-ecosystem ads (so they all come from MS). The messaging is quite similar what they already do with notifications elsewhere in the system ("Edge is faster than Chrome").

It's still manipulative bullshit, but it's not the gaping security hole that it sounds like it 'ought to be. Even so... this type of behavior is what made me drop Windows over 5 years ago now.

> these are in-ecosystem ads (so they all come from MS).

For now.

I think it's incredibly naive to believe it would stay that way. Or maybe I'm just cynical.

EDIT: Considering the fact that the Start menu displays ads for 3rd party software, nah, I think it's naive to assume the ads in Explorer would always come from MS.

In the past Microsoft has had issues with subdomain takeovers[0], resulting in spam being distributed by their own domains.

Without strict guarantees and control over the way this content is delivered to end user systems, how can we know that a similar type of attack could not happen? This time in a potentially administrative level file explorer?

[0]: https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-has-a-subdomain-hija...

I have primarily used Linux for ~15 years. At this point I honestly believe that it's less painful to switch from Windows to Linux than the other way around.

It's obviously still painful to change habits. And I won't downplay how Linux can often be difficult to get working perfectly.

The problem with Windows is that it just feels downright user hostile. Ads here and there, MS products constantly pushed, wizards everywhere, taskbar icons for every piece of hardware. It's like you are renting your PC instead of owning it.

> taskbar icons for every piece of hardware

What?

For example, my laptop (https://support.hp.com/ph-en/document/c07686423 I think) has a taskbar icon for the touchpad and a taskbar icon for the AMD graphics. Neither of those things are custom parts, just default out of the factory.

I'm aware that Windows doesn't come with these out of the box, but they easily add up as you install drivers.

On my gaming PC there are: - Two for audio (if we count the built in one and the one from the driver) - One for Bluetooth - One for fan management - One (or maybe two?) for graphics - One for driver updates.

When logging in I can see these icons showing up one by one, obviously unnecessarily using resources and just cluttering the UI.

Then when you click the icons they each use a different and often "loud" UI framework, some have embedded ads. Some icons you have to double click, others right click.

You can close many of them, and even disable a lot of them - but not all.

Overall it's just not a clean experience.

I'm really sad for people who can't run away from Windows because of work and/or programs they use or because they can't. Ads seem the solution for every failure in making money out of software and it's sad.

Some days ago I just randomly downloaded uTorrent and I was scared by the amount of ads they embedded. I think it's a taste of what Windows will be like if they take this direction.

I run Windows inside Qubes for work and get by well, but of course I took the time to learn how to do that and have a beefy workstation. I also don't have any special requirements for GPU acceleration or other hardware usage.

Side note, if you're not aware you should use qBittorrent, Transmission, BiglyBT or Deluge for torrents.

I've been at a Microsoft/.NET shop for over a decade that has a 90's MS employee as a key board director. However, MS is making such poor decisions with Windows and MSSQL licensing that it's become a high priority to migrate off everything they do going forward. I think it will take enterprise a few years but MS has signed their own death warrant on their old stack - good thing they bought GitHub and went all in on WSL.

uTorrent jumped the shark many many years ago. qBitTorrent is what you want probably since it's an open source uTorrent clone without the ads (alternatively Transmission if you want something really basic that just works).

I'm pretty sure there will be a way to hack things... e.g. blocking the ad servers in your host file...

Not saying it will be great, but screw the system if it only works against us.

The hosts file is ignored for Microsoft's own domains.

utorrent became adware years and years ago... qbittorrent is a nice alternative.

Two things standout to me here.

One is, whatever your opinion on ads on file explorer see might be, using the triangle/exclamation mark Hazard signage for ads is absolutely unacceptable.

The other is, is it just me, or is all the negative press about Microsoft these days caused by the Windows division?

Developer division has caused some issues recently, see the dotnet watch issue for an example

We’re rapidly approaching https://i.redd.it/67inxepejfqz.png

It's an interesting thing to read people complaining about their shitty Windows experience and yet continuing to use Windows in of changing their computer's OS.

Another thing is that people forget about software ownership.

You don't own your computer's OS, Microsoft does,and according its abusive terms of service that no one cares about, they can do whatever they want with their products, including show you ads or anything that disrupt your experience, because the OS is made to serve them, not you.

Every bad day for Microsoft is a good day for Linux.

Better question: Where in windows won't there be any ads? Will there be ghost ads behind the command line interface? Will they sell space on the BSOD?

Microsoft seem desperate to be in the ad business, but don't have any sites that anyone visits or any wortwhile search engine that effectively controls access to the Internet for the majority of the users. The only "Microsoft surface" left where they can stick advertising is the pixels they control via the OS.

I may have a good way of capturing this sentiment:

"We are Putin ads in File Explorer!"

I miss the days when Windows didn't treat me with open contempt.

This makes me nervous. I am realising we are at the end of a giant saas experiment. Get users, monetise them later. If Microsoft take the OS down this route then I am offski. It's not about parting with cash, it's about forcing crap on people who don't want it.

Business idea: ads in git status

I'm pretty sure `git push` and `git pull` display whatever banner the server decides to send. So this could be implemented in Github tomorrow with no git update needed.

“GRUB loading… Please watch this 30 second advert before selecting your operating system.”

Stop... you stop that right now.

If you ever get funding, may I suggest ads if gdb too ?

Ads could be used as canaries/filler for uninitialized memory.

Edit: this segmentation fault is sponsored by Raid Shadow Legends. Use the code SIGSEGV at signup to get a free bonus!

Don't give them ideas!

I've spent a lot of time learning how to use the Win32 api and overall I like using the Windows OS. But the user hostile design decisions of the UI/UX is making it more and more likely that I'll move on. I don't want ads, I don't want cloud, I don't want a store. I just want to use _my_ computer.

>I've spent a lot of time learning how to use the Win32 api

Me too but the world has moved on. Even Microsoft don't care about that anymore [1][2][3].

[1] https://www.justin-credible.net/2017/05/15/the-visual-studio...

[2] https://microsoft.github.io/react-native-windows/blog/2022/0...

[3] https://www.electronjs.org/apps/visual-studio-code

Microsoft act with utter contempt for their users. I now recommend to anyone who asks me that they purchase a Mac instead. Their machines will last longer, they will get better customer support, and they won’t have to put up with stupid shit like this. I can’t in good conscience recommend Windows any longer.

Apple may be better but they’re getting into using their OS to push ads themselves. Only Linux is truly free of adware, at least if you install the right distro.

No company is better. Any company that tries to do better is driven to bankruptcy by market forces.

Don't buy a Mac - they may not have ads but they have their own problems. Your best option is apparently to buy a PC and run Linux.

Ads in paid software? This is simply ridiculous.

Heard of cable TV? Or hell, Hulu even? Still a bunch of bullshit I refuse to use because of shit like this. But it has existed for a while.

Lots of people asking about alternatives to Windows here. I've found Ubuntu-MATE to be very good for my needs. It uses the Ubuntu base which gives it access to the debian software repo as well as being a popular distro so often particular use-cases have been fixed for it. However the MATE aspect is a follow-on from an older desktop environment (Gnome 2), which is a fairly no-nonsense, feature rich and polished environment. It remains under active development and keeps thing simple. I prefer this to the changing sands that is Gnome 3 / Unity or Ubuntu's adaption of Gnome 3.

I wonder if this will make its way into the Enterprise LTSC version or not.

I will likely be recommending it -- we really do NOT have an alternative to Windows (and I know someone will try to be clever about it and make any number of suggestions that aren't going to actually work for us) -- but I can imagine some fairly large software vendors starting to consider Linux compatibility just because of how noxious this is.

I expect paid software not to have ads.

Kinda ironic how, when it comes to operating systems, it's the Free ones that don't have ads.

(Yeah, I know that's not entirely true. Still, I find it kinda hilarious that I might have to switch from a paid operating system to a free one in order to get away from ads.)

Let alone your operating system.

You should expect any software to not have ads.

If you’re not paying for Windows then you’re not the customer, you’re the product.

I can’t imagine Enterprise versions of Windows will have this enabled.

You pay for Windows, the price is already in the hardware, if you purchase a PC with Windows

Is this like when you pay for Hulu but still see ads? Is there a word for this?

I call it lose-lose.

Cable

Two bites at the apple?

They might get it later but I'm pretty sure they will get it eventually, given that enterprise versions eventually got bloatware like candy crush.

I think the classic truism that you are either the customer or the product is outmodded. Companies are normalizing double-dipping and making you a product even when you are paying them.

I haven't seen candy crush on any enterprise installation to date. Maybe you are mistaken?

I think the partnership that caused them to bundle Candy Crush ended a while ago but I belive that it did trickle out to Pro and finally Enterprise before it wrapped up. It's not the highest quality post but this seems to corroborate my belief: https://whatsabyte.com/windows/windows-10-enterprise-bloatwa...

The only thing I get actively annoyed about in Windows 10 Enterprise is the forced installation of that onedrive crap. You can remove that by making your own image but that is still scummy as hell and not different to bundling Windows media player, for which they got fined. Then there is the telemetry that cannot be disabled entirely, but that's a different level of shit. I mean, they do this with Minecraft too [0]...

[0]: https://bugs.mojang.com/browse/MC-237493

I lied. While reading the rest of the thread, one more thing came to mind: Microsoft grants itself several exceptions in the firewall which are restored even if deleted by the user. Stuff like allow inbound any to cortana...

Windows LTSC does not include the OneDrive garbage. I highly recommend checking it out.

> I can’t imagine Enterprise versions of Windows will have this enabled.

Free Windows licences through MSDN (if you work at a .NET/Microsoft shop) ftw. Running Enterprise on my personal machine.

Isn't it a violation of the license to use it for anything other than testing/evaluation?

If I'm going to violate the terms of the license, at least I'm going to do so for free.

I don't know, and tbh I don't care. Doesn't seem like Microsoft care either.

Debian Stable user here. I used to use Win 7, which I was happy with. I never used Win 10, except at a library.

The chances are minimal that I will install wither Win 10 or 11 on my machine. Why should I pay beaucoup dollars for an OS that thinks it's their machine, when I can get a free, no-hassle one that does what I want it to do?

I've noticed that there's been a certain amount of historical revisionism, too. People are saying how great Win 10 was. Win 10 great?? Are you mad? I've read complaint after complaint as to how bad Win 10 is. Microsoft has done a real number on peoples' expectations about what constitutes good and bad. Meanwhile, on Debian, the OS just stays out of my way.

Mozilla has been giving off a "feudal overlord" vibe for some time now, too.

I do use VSCode on Linux on occasion, though. It's actually quite a nippy piece of software. I dread anything involving Java like Eclipse. Of course, real programmers use vim anyway.

I'd suggest switching to Linux but I suspect the most common response will be a Lemongrab-esque "UNACCEPTABLE."

Actually I'm okay with the idea, but only under these conditions:

* They are "to the side", not pop-ups and not blocking or pushing primary content into canned sardines.

* One can close/minimize them to make room when needed.

* They are clearly ads and can't be mistaken for normal content, because you know sleazy marketers (ad purchasers) will try to trick viewers.

* One can pay more to get an ad-free version, or even tiered so one can choose multiple levels between parting with money and annoyance level.

* User can change spam level/features down the road without a big change-fee.

* Does not mine personal info to target ad content, or at least offer a clear and easy way to opt out of targeted ads and related personal content mining.

* Doesn't use "dark UI patterns" to trick users out of money, into loss of privacy, etc. (Amazon is doing more of that, it's friggen annoying.)

I guess they know windows is on-the-way-out if they're trying to eek the last bit of cash from it like this

In what way is Windows "on the way out"?

https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide

In Jan2009 Windows had 95% marketshare across OSes. It’s now at 31% (accounting for iOS/Android). I would compare Windows to all OSes not just desktop OSes as I think mobile OSes do directly compete with Windows, I do know people who use iPads but not PCs.

I think Windows did well in the last year due to its strength in the WFH/education market and the convertible laptop market. If we look at stats from the last year we might think that traditional desktop PCs have a bright future but this is ignoring the broader picture. People are buying Windows PCs to do stuff like using desktop office applications that Microsoft seems to want to replace with rewritten web versions in the long run.

Windows faces a rock and a hard place sort of situation with its x86_64 dependence. It’s a long term liability but a transition to ARM or whatever would remove much of the competitive advantage Windows has. It’s solution to complete with Apple and it’s ARM convergence is to emulate ARM + Android and offer ARM windows alongside x86 windows which is a bit half-assed and disjointed.

Windows is also losing its software moat more and more every year regardless of what it does.

I mean, I think you can make a case for the future of WindowsNT but moves like the record levels of adware in Windows to me project a lack of confidence in the long term future of Windows given the indifference to poisoning the platform. It doesn’t make me go “Wow Microsoft is out to prove the haters wrong who underestimate the benefits of WinNT!”

Developers are going Mac and Linux, Schools are going Chromebooks and many adults are going phones. Companies, constantly being behind the curves are still stuck in MS land.

You have linked to the desktop market. Yes there rules MS, but the desktop market is being destroyed by the phone market where MS doesn't even have an offer.

A more useful chart, shows how it is doing over time https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share#monthly-200901-20...

What’s the trajectory of Windows’ demise?

Not steep enough.

Thankfully I spend >=90% of my time in Linux or Apple based operating systems these days. When support for Windows 10 dries up, hopefully Proton will be up to snuff or I'll just have to kiss some of my steam library goodbye. That's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

Microsoft can shove it.

Ah, reminds me of the good old days when I connected a Windows 98 box directly to the public Internet and was spammed every 10 minutes with WinPopup messages, instructing me to visit a dodgy website for "registry booster virus removal".

I'll certainly enjoy the throwback to simpler times.

Good thing “Files” already exists, then: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/files-app/9nghp3dx8hdx?act...

Just today, discovered a couple apps on my son's Windows profile that he must have accidentally installed since just browsing Windows can cause you to accidentally install apps from the Microsoft Store.

After I uninstalled them, I went to hide them from the Store to prevent the same issue, and nope. Microsoft won't even let you hide apps that you accidentally installed now from the Store. This is in addition to not being able to delete apps from your account either that you installed from their pathetic Store.

Don't get me started on them collecting everything you click on and search for in Windows as well even if you disable telemetry by simply logging into a Microsoft account for the Windows Store (for example, if you use Xbox for PC).

“This file is sponsored by Squarespace. How dystopian.

When I was reading the comments, I remembered that all this s#it was already predicted by one man that people love to hate:

https://stallman.org/microsoft.html

Either that or people worship RMS

Maybe we don't need Windows anymore. Even Elden Ring works pretty well using wine.

Works better, actually. Valve fixed the stuttering issue with Proton, which still remains an issue on Windows.

"pretty well" is still not going to be enough. If it is not using the hardware as well as Windows, then I am losing performance.

There is also all the multiplayer games with anticheat that wont work or ban you on Linux. Destiny 2 for a recent example. And I understand them at one point.

Humanity is solving the wrong problems. Money and ways to make it seem to be pointing in directions that are odds with the general good of the species at large. Ad tech has poisoned so many wells in the last 30 years.

I mean, this is not that much different than Microsoft pushing sky drive, cortana, edge, etc. wherever they can in Windows.

It's annoying as hell but feels on par with the course they've been going with Windows anyways.

This has got to be an Apple mole attempting corporate sabotage in the Windows team, right? right? :-)

This comment is a joke, to be clear. But the idea of irrelevant infobars / ads in Windows Explorer is ... pretty daft.

IMVHO (not using Windows myself) if I buy a product and it bundle ads I ask for refund. With a TV I buy the device, not the service and ads coming from the service are a separate thing (not counting modern dumb TV sold as smart) BUT if I buy an OS the OS even with a limited usage license is MINE, witch means no ads on it. If that's not the case then the OS must be given for free. Pure and simple.

A thing that MUST be enforced by law with sanctions severe enough (significant percentage of global income from the ads themselves) to discourage any abuse.

I’m glad I dropped windows in 2011 when they started down this unsavoury path. Now they’re finally in Xiaomi territory: serving you ads inside essential programs. MacOS has issues, but it is just miles better in terms of invasiveness. I keep a win10 machine for gaming and I cringe every time I have to use it for anything else. Luckily Proton is coming along well, so the win10 installation will be wiped soon. In 10y time no one will use MS garbage any more.

I am still using Windows 10 LTSC version and have dual booted it Pop OS. I do everything on Windows for now but I have all my work setup configured on pop. The day MS pulls this stunt on win 10 and hard codes Ads on file explorer, I am yeeting out all windows service for good. Planning to use windows 10 till they support it then I will switch completely to Linux because I am NEVER downgrading to Windows 11. ( Have you seen the UI pffft)

Considering how often devs rely on explorer, I wonder what the ones at Microsoft will think. Maybe they have a special key to get rid of ads.

Either way, there are 1000 other FS managers on Windows. The only obstacle is matching the integration Explorer has. They have the advantage of being an in house app.

Other file managers have identical integration to basic functionalities like opening a folder today. What’s stopping Microsoft from closing out these features?

Microsoft says Windows 11 File Explorer ads were ‘not intended to be published externally’ - https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/15/22979251/microsoft-file-e...

Windows vs Linux is similar to the chess.com vs lichess.org comparison.

chess.com is worse performance, bloated to the moon w/ ads and popups, costs money, not open-source. And lichess.org is the opposite in every way (free, way higher quality, zero ads).

I can't believe MS would put ads in system tools. What the hell are they thinking!? I've used linux for 5 years now and not looking back!

Do we know for sure that these ads actually link to/show 3rd party content? Don't get me wrong, I'd find this confusing and annoying but it does look like it's just a link to Microsoft content promoting more of their own products.

This might be an indication of the type of ads Microsoft already embeds in Windows 10's start menu: https://i.redd.it/bfc336ql88sz.png

I've logged in to MS Teams and instead of the web app, I get a landing screen asking me if I want to install the desktop app. Powershell also contains a URL-shortener link to their documentation.

This is an awesome news from Microsoft. Kudos to whoever thought of this!

I have been waiting for so long for Linux desktop to gain mass popularity. This move from Microsoft will finally make my dreams come true.

2022/2023 will be the year of Linux desktop!

The article suggests these are ads to push other Microsoft products.

That makes its worse than "just" an annoying generic distraction to consumers, it's a massive legal liability in it being anti competitive behavior.

File Explorer is absolute the worst thing on Windows, kinda disgusting engineering time is spent on this and not improving performance and search.

Although not sure I'm surprised, even MacOS/iOS are full of ads these days.

> even MacOS/iOS are full of ads these days

…where? Mac and iOS don’t have any ads, anywhere, except in a couple of apps (Apple News, App Store, and if you want to be pedantic, Apple Music).

It's always nice to see Microsoft trying to push more users to Linux.

There are just certain things I'm not expecting to experience ads.

On my OS is one, in my car while driving is another, I really hope we're not moving towards world where ads are literally everywhere.

The old adage went like this: Windows for games, macOS for work, Linux for servers.

I'm hoping that Steam Deck will change this to Linux (Proton) for games, macOS for work and Linux for servers.

Horrible but predictable: http://lumma.org/microwave/#2006.09.22

Just switch to an open source OS like Linux already

I tried setting up my Mom's computer a few weeks ago. I can't imagine anybody using Windows these days, truly awful CX.

When is a file explorer about being distracted from going about your business? People will just migrate to Q-Dir.

One more reason to pay slightly more for Windows 11 Pro (which I have).

My guess is the pro version will never see this pollution.

Words can't express the visceral anger this level of obnoxious, user-hostile behavior provokes.

I use Linux and uBlock on desktop and Graphene OS and Bromite on mobile... what's an ad anyway?

Give me one single reason to migrate.

Wow; wow, wow.

I honestly can't believe anyone uses this pile of shit OS anymore.

I left Windows because adware and spyware became such a prevalent problem that I just got tired of dealing with it.

But when the OS itself is the adware, I just...I honestly don't even know what to say. You couldn't pay me enough to use Windows. You really couldn't.

I vote for this OP, only because there isn’t a downvote and that it is distasteful.

It sometimes feels like Microsoft has their own "Tick-Tock" development model for Windows. This is the tock where we get to break prior working hardware, have ugly design decisions made, and who knows what else.

Hopefully the tick for Windows 12 will be better than this tock.

The reality is developing an OS is very expensive. I can totally understand why MS is going down that path. It's great that MS is asking for feedback from users. Unlike Google, which is keeping users hostages for some extra money.

Windows works and is printing money since more than three decades. Of course they don’t need to add ads.

Since at least Windows 7 they could have done nothing other than changing colors and styles and still print money.

I’m not saying that Windows shouldn’t evolve. But since Windows 7, basically everything is just worse. I can’t see a single thing that I could qualify as "better". I just lost more and more control as the time passes. Heck I can’t even resize and move the taskbar anymore.

There is a lot of thing I like in my current job but the day I’ll quit, quitting Windows will be a relief.

And I’m saying that as someone who grew up with Windows, learned computing with Windows, played with Windows… Although I prefer Linux/macOS, I’ve never been "anti" anything. But Windows 11 is just insulting me on a daily basis, I can’t stand it anymore.

> The reality is developing an OS is very expensive

Linux?

And ignoring that, Windows is already a paid product, and a very expensive one at that ($100+ for a new license).

First thought: hell no! Second thought: fucking hell no!

I can't believe that anyone pays money for windows. It's the worst OS by far of any that I use (macos, freebsd, linux, openbsd, etc), it's the only one that costs money, and it's the only one which shows me ads.

The fact that MacOS can't be purchased separately doesn't make it free.

This is why I only use Enterprise LTSC versions of Windows.

Never thought I would say this...Apple here I come.

::Emperor Palpatine Voice:: “Do it!!”

leave the file explorer alone. or ms would ask for subscription fees to avoid ads.

use windows server instead

In late capitalism it’s an agreed upon fact of life that poor people’s minds must be bombarded with ads 24/7. Look at the amount of billboards in a poor neighborhood vs a gated community for the elites. This is just a natural extension of this principle to operating systems. Poor people’s operating systems (i.e. Android, Windows) will be filled to the brim with scammy ads, because they have no power to look elsewhere.

I'm not sure how copywrited software (a government enforced monopoly on intellectual property) is an example of capitalism but maybe you'll enlighten me?

is it April yet ?

Hah. I’ve been using Windows for my primary desktop for 30 years. I’m removing it the instant I start getting ads like that. That’s my limit.

I'll believe it when I see it in my start menu. Till then it's speculation.

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