The more I see things like this happening, the less I want to entrust anything important to MS, Google, Amazon, etc.
- "Install Microsoft Authenticator to log in with your phone"
- "Sign up for OneDrive to protect against ransomware attacks"
- "Do more with Microsoft Edge!" (this one shows up when you change your default browser)
I prefer my operating system to not upsell me.
The only problem with my Microsoft account seems to be that I didn't create one. Not a problem to me, but obviously a problem at Microsoft. |But then I'm only the guy who BOUGHT the computer and deliberately avoided creating a MSFT account. What do I know? Funny how there's no "go away and never bother me again" option on that alert.
more and more, Microsoft makes me feel like a visitor in my own home (computer).
I think it started with XP. If you tried to avoid installing windows genuine advantage (by deselecting it during the update procedure), it would come up again, then come up with increased frequency. Until in my case, it somehow just started installing itself of it's own accord.
People paid money and bought computers that came bundled with Windows licenses, and then they paid money for Windows major updates, and then ultimately Microsoft decided to bundle most of the updates for free. But one day in one of the free updates, they added in WGA (how is this not bait and switch of loyal paying customers? My operating system needs to phone home for security reasons?). But you had to opt-in. Then they decided in a later free update that it wasn't such a great idea to allow their users to permanently opt out, and their software got increasingly aggressive about making sure WGA was always enabled. You could opt out, but it tried again. And finally you just couldn't opt out anymore.
Then they used dark patterns to ensure you would think you needed a Microsoft account just to log into their computers. Wait was it your computer? Now this article about someone whose Microsoft account was closed without explanation and they're up shit-creek for it.
Is this not all absolutely part of the same conversation? It's a long history with a lot going on in it. This is not a rant against Microsoft, but a cautionary tale against depending on SaaS and letting it creep into your stack, as that's apparently also what Windows has become now, too.
I was 10 years old in the 1990's and recently I realized that I had actually convinced (or suppressed) in my memory that IE was never really a monopoly, but the historical statistics on browsers tell a very different story. So maybe my memory is not so good about IE, and given that I switched to an Open Source system in my teenage years and didn't look back, perhaps that can be excused, but still most people actually haven't. (Hell, some are still using IE...)
I guess it's true that, with the coming of the Internet, and the possibility that you could easily download and pirate Windows, if everyone knows this and WGA doesn't happen in 2008, then your security is legitimately at risk if Microsoft can't profit off of Windows, because then they won't have any incentive left to provide updates except at cost... and you need updates (we need you to get updates, it's like a vaccine that herd immunity only works to stamp out the disease if most people get innoculated.)
Microsoft is much bigger now than when the internet was new, and I think are not really worried about making a profit off of Windows anymore. But as a Windows user, I think that understanding of the history and assessment of the current state of where we are at with Windows profitability and updates would be troubling, for me.
The feeling of being given the option to choose, then being coerced strongly (with my resistance) and then being forced upon my laptop gave a strange sense of having been violated.
In a way I'm glad it happened. I was so annoyed / possibly angry? that it prompted me to find a different OS, and my only regret was not finding it earlier.
Have you noticed how on the desktop it says "this PC", not "My PC" ?
It's not the same but I made the mistake of trying the Microsoft launcher on my Android phone. Maybe I was thinking it was the MS Authenticator app. What a disaster! It took me a while to figure out how to revert back.
For the curious to undo the MS launcher: settings > apps > click dots in top corner > Default Apps > Home Screen > Choose a different launcher
But I do see many other people asking how do undo the MS launcher so it seems like I wasn't the only fool.
The MS launcher does look interesting but it was not what I wanted.
Of all the obnoxious things with Windows 10 there was nothing that made my blood boil more than being in the middle of a competitive Overwatch match and have Windows pop up over my screen telling me to install Skype.
(The second place award goes to when I was using one of those early developer builds of Windows 10 and the license expired. Next time I booted the machine it booted into a blue screen telling me that, because it had expired, they went ahead and deleted a system file that made the OS impossible to boot. The exact details are fuzzy now, but that's the gist of it. I'm seriously not making that up. Important system file deleted; OS dead)
you can disable that, and it might actually improve your performance as well!
I think it was in Settings (the windows 10 settings, not the old control panel) / Gaming / Game Bar [disable] && Game DVR [ OFF ]
> I get spammed _during_ gaming with popups telling me to install Skype or some other Microsoft product. Plus all the spam on the lock screen about using a Windows phone (I haven't even _seen_ anyone with a Windows phone in five years).
never experienced that, nor do i use the lock screen @ home, so no clue there
It's one of those talking, singing, humming, weather-reporting, poetry-reading, novel-reciting, jingle-jangling, rockaby-crooning-when-you-go-to-bed houses... With stoves that say, 'I'm apricot pie, and I'm done,' or 'I'm prime roast beef, so baste me!' and other nursery gibberish like that... A house that barely tolerates humans, I tell you.
lol, "do more ..." a browser that doesn't even support basic API like EventTarget or CustomEvent constructors. they learned nothing since IE debacle.
At least they were forced to offer LTSB for enterprise customers. Though I recently read they are rebranding the name.
But I still ended up needing a Microsoft account for the download. I was surprised to find I already had one (for the email I was using) , but I did and I was able to use it to download/install/validate the software.
Only later did I realize it was an account I created for my son to play Minecraft... hopefully he doesn't manage to get me banned from the Microsoft ecosystem.
In the future this can only exist if people pay for it, and clearly ... that's not going to happen.
I didn't even know a Microsoft account was an option when I set up my desktop :)
I'm no entirely familiar with the differences and I've been planning on buying a Win10 Pro license, so any advice would be helpful :)
Enterprise licenses give you full control of the OS via group policy in addition to all the things that Pro gives you. You can effectively turn off anything you want in the editor.
You also have full control of updates, so if that's what was keeping you away from W10 then... there you go.
Then, does that mean that you can't edit those settings in the Pro version? (I know there are some utilities to do that, but I would prefer to do it natively)
Unfortunately you can't. The 3rd party utilities work fine though, you just have to run them again after every major update.