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Comment by satysin | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft do cool things like this which makes me think "oh wow they really are a different company to 15 years ago"

So I go and check out a new Windows 10 laptop and the first thing I see, even on Microsoft's own Surface devices running a 'clean' Windows install, is a bunch of adverts on the start menu and sigh.

FFS Microsoft.

Why do you do so many great things then ruin your most popular brand with crap like Candy Crush and Twitter on your clean Windows install on your £3000+ premium laptop running Windows 10 Professional?

Not to mention how you conveniently always reset my settings to your defaults including reinstalling all your ad-crap every 6 months with a new Windows release. So I have to go find that damn PowerShell script again to wipe them out because a normal uninstall option is just too much to ask for isn't it!

Honestly it does my head in. Windows 10 is a solid OS but they trash it with these awful little pointless decisions. Fine stick your Candy crap in the Home edition but leave Professional alone, especially as you offer me no alternative as an independent development as I can't meet your Enterprise level requirements.

Do you see Apple loading up third-party apps into macOS? No? I wonder why.

Solving a lot of the complaints about Windows 10 isn't some super hard development problem. All they have to do is provide an actual clean version of Windows 10 with no third-party crap and cut out a few of the MS apps as well like 3D Paint (really?), 'Get Office' (again really? In your Professional version?), stop nagging me about changing from your own products, remove all 'suggestions' and tips, allow me to properly disable Cortana and OneDrive with a single option and they be actually gone for good, and maybe have an option to fully disable telemetry (not that I would as I know it is beneficial to you and I but it will shut up some noisy people online and makes everyone happy).

See not that hard is it? Also please go to a one release per year. The fact you have screwed up the last two consecutive updates shows you are pushing to do too much too quickly. Who are you in a race with anyway? Just take your time and do a nice solid update every Spring and everyone will be much happier.

View on HN

Yeah.

Imagine your favourite burger place packing a credit-card sized piece of plastic in the middle of the bun.

You can remove it. It's fairly trivial. You know it's there, it's too big to swallow, you pull it out, chuck it in the bin, and get on your way.

That's what advertising in Windows feels like.

It's just not polite.

Strange but accurate analogy

Advertising _is_ strange.

I'm trying to do a thing and you've put this colorful flashy box in front of it.

Imagine if people tried to "monetize" their conversations. They might claim that otherwise they couldn't afford to talk to anyone (rent ain't gonna pay itself, right).

You'd be talking about football or whatever and suddenly a different tone of voice would emanate from your conversational partner for 10 seconds whilst they talk about some Super New Product.

As far as I can tell the whole industry is impolite, rude, gauche, just a bit icky, really.

I'm surprised this was not an episode of black mirror, sounds crazy ...but that's just me in 2018 thinking that

> Imagine if people tried to "monetize" their conversations.

People do try to monetize their conversations. That's why "networking" is a different word than "socializing".

That's also why it's relegated to special events and occasions, like professional conferences. If you try to "network" when normal "socialization" is called for, you'll be seen as tactless or sleazy.

This holds true for a lot of things related to sales & advertising - if you tried to repeat the same practices in person to your family or friend, you'd get distaste or a punch in the face.

The behavior isn't different in terms of what you do. The name is different according to your goal when you do it.

Only in the sense that both involve talking and smiling. The goal is different, and that goal is shared by all parties involved. If a situation calls for one goal, but you decide to pursue another (networking on a social event, socializing on a networking event), there's a mismatch that makes people uncomfortable.

Advertising makes me angry.

I live in a city that has a characteristic mountain. So, naturally, advertisers are placing their towering billboards so that they constantly block the view when you're driving on the avenue that would have the best unimpeded line of sight.

Whenever advertising makes me angry, I think of all the free things I wouldn't have without it.

Like? You can't really know that you wouldn't have open source, p2p versions of the things you use today that you assume can only exist because of advertising.

Of course I can't prove what may or may not happen.

I just know that I do in fact have these things today because of advertising.

What free things wouldn't you have without it?

What do you think the cost would be for these free things without advertising?

The biggest downside I can think of is while I would happily pay for Google search (per search, subscription, whatever) in an ad free world, there's lots of people who simply wouldn't bother to search and learn new things.

Really though I think they have a good model for their search page, it's unobtrusive and not rude, and it made them the most powerful tech company in silicon valley, so clearly it works. Wonder why other adtechs had to get so much shittier about it.

Do you mean like, t-shirts and mugs you've gotten from promotions?

I suspect they meant Gmail and suchlike.

But free tshirts are pretty nifty.

Like Facebook?

I think that I shall never see / A billboard lovely as a tree. / Perhaps unless the billboards fall / I'll never see a tree at all. -- Ogden Nash

Financial advisors, insurance agents, lawyers, and all sorts of white-collar professionals are expected to sell their firm’s services through their own networks. Of course, human salesmen are paid more for tact, class, and effectiveness that for raw impression count.

Financial advisors maybe, but that's precisely the reason I quickly concluded "financial advisors" for individuals are just a scam for pushing unneeded financial products. Other white-collar professions? How to imagine this happening outside networking events, aka. mutually-understood time for professionals to advertise themselves to each other.

I see it a lot. "Oh, your an accountant! Let's chat later I have some questions about XYZ". Those with less tact will ask then and there usually with a response to meet them at the office next week.

A french Telco provider tried this once. You could get free calls from your mobile but had to listen to an ad before being connected. It didn't last long.

On certain forums that allow signatures people are putting links to their companies/projects or affiliate links, etc. This disrupts the flow of conversation in pretty much the way you describe.

It was (maybe still is) particularly annoying on Bitcoin forums for example, where signatures can contain images.

Agreed, and the reason advertising is so pervasive literally stepping between us and anything we consume is that markets are saturated with products: too many products compared to potential customers, so that they have to fight to get the first spot between us and their competitors. People don't look for a product anymore, it's the other way around, and it's not going to stop unless we focus on the real problem which is not advertising but the monster giving it full control: ie our flawed economic system.

Yeah, but only ~20% of the population knows how to take out the plastic bit. You go to the restaurant with your family and watch them chew around the middle and throw away part of their burger.

They don't eat the plastic. They look at it, read it out loud for a laugh, buy the product being advertised, and then say they don't mind the plastic card because they can just ignore it and it's better than having no burger at all.

If it takes the powershell to remove it, your figure should be closer to 1%

Have you tried putting your burger back at the plate and lift it up again?

I believe it's this way because teams within Microsoft are not working towards the same goals. The Marketing / Business team and Development team have very different goals. This is a classic symptom I see a lot coaching smaller companies, seems like it happens in large companies too.

The Product people understand what makes a great product, but Marketing / Business people need short term fix in order to reach their KPIs, which pressures them to do what they do to the product, fill it up with advertisement. Otherwise marketing people will be out of a job.

There is a disconnect between Product and Business from within Microsoft. This is where Apple still has an edge, I'm not saying apple doesn't have internal conflicts they do, but they resolve it and when they speak they all speak the same message, this IMO is Apple's true strength.

Making the 2 teams work in a cohesive manner will take a lot of effort from the management, having understanding and patience to make Marketing and Product work together in harmony.

Just my $0.02

Nadella doesn't know that Windows has ads and spyware-like telemetry?

Either he must be using a Mac or Linux, or he's approved these shenanigans himself.

> spyware-like telemetry

Gonna need a source on that one. Not the "telemetry" part, the "spyware" part.

Edit: Because it's possible now to see all telemetry sent and even delete it from Microsoft's servers.

I seriously do not see the harm in usage telemetry...

No it isn’t. Microsoft refuses to disclose what is sent as part of the required “security” level telemetry.

And, according to the agreement, they have access to all your documents if they ‘have a good faith believe that doing so is necessary’

If I have an infected file, they can have a copy. I don't mind.

Honestly a lot of you must just have piles of questionable stuff you aren't proud of but also somehow can't stop collecting/creating, and you don't want anyone to ever see, because no one else will ever understand or something.

Not even my employer, the most risk-averse place I have ever worked, worries about the security telemetry.

Everyone has things they want to keep private. If you disagree I suggest that you film yourself walking down the street naked whilst saying your banking login details. Then post this on YouTube. Don't want to do this? Then you have things you want to be private too.

How is that action even remotely comparable to MS security telemetry?

How many people keep backups of photos on their computers? How many of those people have taken nude selfies? How many do banking on their computers?

Who keeps their own (or someone else's, for that matter) nude selfies? What fucking planet am I on? If I need to produce one (I have never needed to) then I get naked and take one. I don't keep a stash of naked selfies for retirement.

A lot of celebrities do, apparently.

Making something public and making an infected file available only to Microsoft, if and only if they have a good faith reason to use it to improve their products and services, are WILDLY different.

You make it sound like you, the user, have a choice in the matter.

You're not "making something available" and they're not asking you for permission. They taking it if they want it and you can't do anything about it.

I think that's what people object to most, the loss of freedom to say no, this is mine, it's private and I control who has access to it.

Then don't use Windows 10 if the terms and conditions are a problem for you...

If you don't use Windows, or are forced to, then just admit that you want/need something to complain about.

> Not even my employer, the most risk-averse place I have ever worked, worries about the security telemetry.

It's easy then - You simply don't work in very risk-averse environment. None of my employers in last 8 years would ever put anything like current Win10 on any computer in the company, precisely because of that.

That's an ignorant statement. You don't know where I work.

My current employer is more risk-averse than State Farm, a very large insurance company, whose livelihood requires a strong aversion to risk. I worked there for 3.5 years.

I know risk-averse when I see it.

Paranoia and risk-aversion are very different things.

Having a "good faith belief" is actually a high bar, legally.

I remain unconcerned.

And who is going to challenge Microsoft on this in court?

You lot, by the strength of the hatred I'm reading, here.

I am not really concerned Microsoft is downloading files from computers, but I am concerned if they technically have the ability to do so. If it requires an encryption key or some kind of password, these have a tendency to leak. If it is limited to a certain group of people, who's to say none of these people can be persuaded to sell your data? And would it be acceptable if the three-letter agencies can start snooping not only in the cloud but also on your own computer without you knowing?

Well fuck I guess they see all my emails to Grandma and they pirate all my unpublished anime fan fiction with the security level telemetry. Good point.

Telemetry, I think most people (given a choice) would opt-out but OK.

What I hate are all the dark-patterns, registry keys and obscure processes that you have to locate to perform the opt-out (and even don't clearly know they are disabled). I'm a bit sick of fighting the OS that I purchased to make my life easier.

Even published Group Policy seems like an arms race, every time a new Windows 10 release there are a crap-ton of new telemetry settings.

And why-oh-why does Windows Server have the XBox client installed?

Windows is becoming the weakest part of the Microsoft stack.

I understand what you're saying but it is just a poor excuse IMHO. It has been 3 years since Windows 10 came out, everyone at Microsoft knows it comes with this crap. They want it there.

I mean, that great, but I've had Windows 10 for two years and I don't even know what you people are talking about. Never seen anything resembling an ad.

I believe you must be an outlier. To get a quick understanding just Google: windows 10 candy crush

I work on a Windows 10 Enterprise Virtual Machine. I keep seeing ads in the start menu for Netflix, Forza Horizon etc.

I could at least somehow understand if this was a home edition, but imho totally unacceptable to have it on an Enterprise version.

It's weird. I use Windows 10 all the time both at work and in office and I never see these ads. I'm in Sweden, maybe it's not targeted somehow.

I'm in the US. I don't see them either. I haven't for a long time, tens of months.

You probably have "Show Suggestions occasionally in Start" disabled.

I was honestly stunned with my recent Dell laptop purchase. Windows10 pro on a workstation does not need Candy Crush Saga or Minecraft preinstalled.

I was even more stunned when I bought a Surface Book 2 directly from Microsoft for over £3000 running Windows 10 'Professional' and the first thing I see after booting it up is Candy Crush, TripAdvisor, Twitter and Minecraft on my start menu.

Not to mention after installing Office 365 I was still greeted with a 'helpful' prompt to 'Get Office'. Sigh.

The market doesn't really seem to care all that much about it. Windows is practically clean on install compared to any Android phone I've owned. My favorite in terms of pointlessness was my Samsung phone that had both Chrome and a Samsung browser based on Chromium on it, and the Samsung browser was the default. It was worse in every way than just Chrome.

Unless it does. Maybe if there was no junk they could command Apple premiums for their devices and get Apple sales numbers.

Can you uninstall Apple Music from iOS devices?

Yes. I was able to delete it from my iPhone.

Yes. In fact, you can delete almost every preinstalled app on iOS devices.

Wow. I didn’t believe you. But you’re right, I just removed my music app. :o

It's fairly recent, iOS 10 or 11.

Windows is practically clean on install compared to any Android phone I've owned

My Nexus Android phones were clean. And yes, Sony etc phones are adware, but so are Sony Windows computers.

Deflecting, excusing, irrelevant Samsung discussions...

Any large enough company can get away with customer-hostile behaviour without the market correcting it.

It's not really an apples-to-apples comparison though, is it? If you're talking about a clean install of Windows you should be comparing to a Nexus or Pixel.

Samsung is more like the eMachines or Packard Bell of the Android world as far as bundled crapware is concerned.

Recently got a new Samsung phone from AT&T. I'm not sure which one installed more crapware.

My favorite is I have 6 new contacts for AT&T, like "Pay My Bill".

And if you get an insurance replacement, they "make" you install their third party "Pro Tech" app, and ask you questions about what's on the home page (of the app) after installed to "verify it installed correctly".

> My favorite in terms of pointlessness

I heavily disagree. The main reason google was fined by the EU was their anti-competitive monopoly abuse, forcing manufacturers to bundle all their apps. While I like chrome, its market dominance in particular on android is worrisome. Since Samsung can not offer another browser instead of chrome, but only in addition, this is the best they can do in this situation. Instead of complaining about "duplication", I applaud them for their efforts.

  Do you see Apple loading up third-party apps into macOS? No? I wonder why.

Well, they do load up Google as their default search provider to make an extra $3 billion per year off Apple users.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/14/google-paying-apple-3-billio...

Sure, because search is actually a feature people want. I don’t want one drive or candy crush or telemetry data and all those are harder to turn off then changing search to DuckDuckGo on MacOS or iOS.

> one drive

Mac OS does come with a fairly deep iCloud Drive integration, and iOS defaults to backing up photos and files then tries to upsell to a higher package when space runs out. It's only fairly recently that iOS shipped with a dedicated file manager, instead making you store any documents you have either in individual apps or on iCloud Drive.

To be fair, macOS asks once about the iCloud, and when told 'No', it respects the user and never asks again, and never puts anything iCloud related into users face.

People? I?

Well, yes, people DO in fact want candy crush.

> Well, they do load up Google as their default search provider

While that's true, a browser pretty much needs a default search engine, and Google is widely regarded as the best. I'm not sure that Apple could make a more customer-centric choice.

Really? The worst privacy suck of a search choice for all of their devices is a "customer-centric" choice?

They couldn't default to the least intrusive? Or rotate randomly amongst the options?

No. They couldn't. Rotating randomly is just about the most frustrating thing you can do to a user. Also forcing your users to use an unfamiliar search engine.

Remember, we're talking about people that Google "Facebook" to go to Facebook.

You seem to imply that Apple users are less bright than the general population.

Oh come on!

Yes Safari includes Google, Bing, Yahoo and DuckDuckGo as built-in search providers.

That is not the same thing as bundling Candy Crush Soda in the Dock. Hell Apple don't even include the free iWorks apps such as Pages and Numbers in a clean macOS install you have to go and get them via the Mac App Store.

Very accurate. Ads in windows and those games that no ones wants are a real drag. Is there no way to get a clean install, and not have it reinstall every single crazy app after upgrading. Its one of the most annoying things when using Windows these days... it takes good 20 minutes to remove everything, get rid of ads and games, and Cortana doing random internet searches - I really dont want that by default.

> Is there no way to get a clean install, and not have it reinstall every single crazy app after upgrading.

If you meant that as a question, end it with a question mark (?).

If you meant it as a statement, you're wrong. Uninstalled apps do not reappear upon upgrade to newer Windows 10 version.

The ads can be turned off. That setting is persisted via your Microsoft account, if you use one. The ads stay off when upgrading. I haven't seen any ads in the start menu (or anywhere else in Win10 except a browser) for many, many months; at least 2 years, and probably more.

If you log in with a Microsoft account instead of a local user account, all those settings persist across devices, even fresh installs where you also log in using the same MS account. It takes a bit of time for everything to sync up, and most of those things get applied to all machines when you make a change on one. The things that aren't take less than a minute, and only need to be done once. (I am unsure here, I haven't set up a new Windows 10 install in over a year, and I can't recall doing anything other than uninstalling a few apps, less than 5, on a new install. It literally takes 15 seconds, so forgive me if I don't have precise infallible memory on this one point.)

The thing that really gets my goat about people that complain on the internet is that their complaints are never updated when the situation changes. Some of those complainers think they are making valid complaints, when in the eyes of someone who has actually followed up on things, they appear to be completely ignorant and baseless complaints.

Being fair, the advertisements can be switched off (and Windows Setup offers this during the Out of Box Experience when the computer is first used or a major update occurs), and those icons can be removed fairly simply. Also, those third party apps aren't preinstalled; they're just shortcuts to the Microsoft Store to download them.

I see a lot of people spending more energy ranting about this, a problem that doesn't necessarily exist in the way that people might think, than doing a quick investigation to find that the apps aren't there in the first place.

People shouldn't have to spend any time on this, at all. Very few people want ads for games or anything else than their operating system focus in their start menu. There should be at most a subtle opt-in option.

>Very few people want ads for games or anything else than their operating system focus in their start menu.

Why do you think the average person wouldn't want these popular apps a click away?

Because if I want software to perform a particular action I will go looking at it. I don't want unwanted icons hanging around waiting for me to accidently click on them.

That's because you are not part of MS Store's target user segment.

I actually have yet to meet a person that plays Candy crush windows, and not for lack of hanging around non technical people.

Is there some way I can opt out of "average person" justifications for crappy experiences? If I'm paying a niche price for a niche product I should expect more than "average".

> Being fair, the advertisements can be switched off...

There's nothing "fair" about that. I shouldn't have to.

Especially in a Pro version. Groove Music is my complaint as that cannot be removed with the uninstaller.

I have never seen an option in the OOBE to disable the automatic installation of Twitter, Candy Crush, Trivago, Fallout Shelter, Kindle and other such crap. What setting are you referring to?

You are correct in that they are stubs however the moment Windows finds internet access it begins downloading them. This is obviously their preferred solution to ensure the user gets the latest and greatest version of the appvert.

Some can be removed easily and some not. I know Microsoft are working on making it easier to remove more of their own apps which they should have done in the first place IMHO.

Yes I am spending energy ranting about this because it is a problem to me. I shouldn't have to spend any time on removing such crap from an OS that I paid around £200 for (Pro license remember not some free upgrade from Windows 7 back in 2015) that is baked into the £3000+ price of my Surface Book 2.

It isn't that it is too difficult just that it shouldn't be required. It would be like buying a Mercedes and having to remove advertising stickers from the back Windows.

I'm curious what your opinions of Windows Loader/picoKMS et al are.

On the one hand, it would get an Enterprise copy running.

On the other hand... this is old (may 2017) and the URL shortner hiding the "followup article" is down, but there's this: https://twitter.com/m8urnett/status/866353982217699328 / https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14389441

I think it's a bit like having a big smudge of snot on your screen. Sure, you can clean it off. Certainly, it's trivial. Equally, it devalues the product, far more than any value it could bring Microsoft. When I buy a new laptop, I don't want to spend 3 hours reading articles about how to get rid of adverts for mobile phone games, and switching off other blatantly user-hostile features.

It's just vaguely schizophrenic. You have all this genuinely cool, nicely done engineering, then the initial impression is ruined by a load of slapped-on garbage. It's like selling a BMW with a bunch of McDonnalds special-offer vouchers stuck to the steering wheel.

> I think it's a bit like having a big smudge of snot on your screen

Or, to take the laptop analogy, like having unnecessarily-difficult-to-remove stickers showing off the processor, graphics, and chipset inside… we're all oddly desensitised to devalued products and apply different standards depending on what strikes us as more outrageous.

> I don't want to spend 3 hours reading articles about how to get rid of adverts

Sure, so just be sure to disable ads during the OOBE session when you first turn the computer on. It's a checkbox or switch or whatever Windows has decided to use now.

Of course, I do take the point. Especially when it comes to regular people, whose apprehension at seeing the words 'advanced' and 'setup' in the same place make the prospect of choosing anything other than the Express Setup out of the question. I'm just saying it's not the drama that some people make it out to be, not for the technically minded I assume this site's audience to be.

There are plenty of people who are very technically minded that have absolutely zero interest in configuring their computer.

I'm not outraged by it. I just feel bad for the talented people at microsoft who sweat over the OS, only to have somebody glue-gun a bunch of trash to the front at the last minute.

> Being fair, the advertisements can be switched off

Sorry, but Citation required.

I've installed more than my fair share of Windows 10 Home and Pro versions, had both shipped on new devices and nowhere was I offered any options which controlled installing this shit.

> a problem that doesn't necessarily exist in the way that people might think

Even if it was a shortcut to the Windows Store, but it still there eating up space on the start screen... But even still it doesn't help.

I have to go uninstall it (because yes, it's actually installed goddamn Candy Crush and other shit for me)

I'll open up my laptop and find it's decided that it'll install Windows Update right now and fuck whatever I wanted to do with the machine.

Worse, once it's completed it's screwing with my machine, it's gone and re-installed shit, and now bugs me (again) about "Hey, instead of using Chrome, how about you use Edge!" and has reset a bunch of other system options to be the way MS wants them.

I'm hardly alone in this experience - I saw at least half a dozen presenters at NDC Oslo last year bitching about this happening to them the morning of/right before presentations, and I've had it happen to me during meetings/conference calls/etc - where it's fucked off with work that I'm in the middle of.

Windows 10 is why I'm on a full-on effort to move my primary machines over to Linux after decades of Windows use.

It’s in the advanced options of the install process..............

Maybe I did it wrong, but I intended to switch it off and I still get ads after updates on my gaming machine.

Ok, which specific advanced option, and where? Are certain key combinations required? Is it only settable by putting options in a config file?

Please be specific, and/or link to any relevant documentation.

'cause I hit Advanced any time there was an option, and switched every privacy setting/tracking option off. Yet it still installs ads for Office, various other Bing shit, Installs Candy Crush, etc.

During the OOBE, one of the options is 'Tailored Experience'. The blurb under it notes that disabling it will disable ads and recommendations.

I just tried this on a the latest version of Windows 10 and with everything disabled during the OOBE I still get Candy Crush, Twitter, Minecraft, Get Office, etc. in the start menu.

How do I avoid those using settings in the OOBE?

Those I don't think you can get rid of because they're shortcut files that happen to show up in the Start Menu by default. Easily enough gotten rid of, though.

Update your complaints to match the updated situation, please.

Candy crush does get installed on fresh Win10 installs, and the person responsible for that deal was drummed out of Microsoft, I believe, and once that agreement expires, that'll stop. In the meantime it takes literally 5 seconds to right-click the icon and choose "uninstall" then click the confirmation, and it wont ever come back.

Removed applications do not get reinstalled on a patch or OS upgrade.

Turning off advertisements turns off advertisements, and it will never switch back on by itself.

> Update your complaints to match the updated situation, please.

I don't understand what you mean by updated situation? Have things changed in the last month or two? From a commenter above, that's apparently not the case.

> once that agreement expires, that'll stop

Microsoft is large enough and profitable enough that if they actually cared, they'd pay out the agreement's terms and stop it. They could actually use it as a "We're sorry, we've stopped doing this" marketing to the folks who're pissed off about it.

> Removed applications do not get reinstalled on a patch or OS upgrade.

This isn't true, I've uninstalled various Xbox, Bing, Skype, "Get Office" and other stuff a few times now on the one machine.

> it takes literally 5 seconds to right-click the icon and choose "uninstall" then click the confirmation

And to repeat that again for eeevery damn ad/preload application. It takes a damn sight longer than 5 seconds to remove the ones you can actually remove. But there's still other preloaded apps like OneDrive that I can't remove or even hide.

> I don't understand what you mean by updated situation? Have things changed in the last month or two? From a commenter above, that's apparently not the case.

Things have changed since Windows 10 was released, yes. The last 3-4 releases have honored your uninstallations; if you remove candy crush, upgrades to newer versions of Windows 10 will not replace it, UNLESS the image used to upgrade marks it for installation. The stock Windows 10 media from Microsoft does not, so stock media from Microsoft will not reinstall anything you uninstalled before you began the upgrade.

Other commenters agree with me, as well. Something situational to you is putting them back, I suspect.

>> it takes literally 5 seconds to right-click the icon and choose "uninstall" then click the confirmation

> And to repeat that again for eeevery damn ad/preload application. It takes a damn sight longer than 5 seconds to remove the ones you can actually remove. But there's still other preloaded apps like OneDrive that I can't remove or even hide.

It only takes me 5 seconds, but maybe my computer performs better than yours. If you're not on an SSD I can see why you say it takes longer than 5 seconds, certainly. You only need to uninstall the one time before upgrading to one of the last 3-4 releases of Windows. I forget exactly which one implemented the change. If you are using Windows 10 versions prescribed to you by your IT department, then all bets are off, because a lot of things tend to get customized in those scenarios and I can't know about those customizations and/or limitations.

If you use a Microsoft account, your settings for ads and other personalization preferences will persist across all devices you use that account on. You don't even need to associate your login details with your MSA, simply logging into that MSA on the account in question is enough to sync up those things.

>a problem that doesn't necessarily exist in the way that people might think

It exists in exactly the way it manifests. It's obnoxious. I paid (I _paid_ for this!) for an OS, not to be a node in an ad delivery network.

I expect the advertising comes out of the fact that Windows 10 is Microsoft's first proper attempt at a free upgrade. But yes, people have paid for Windows, so in this case it's unacceptable — but I don't think Microsoft figured out (or particularly cares to figure out) what installation is what type.

Technically yes, but realistically no. Those options are very spread out and many are named in a way that sounds different from advertising (like Cortana Suggestions).

Making a default in a mainstream OS where many people would not know how nor would care to put in the effort is basically making it forced.

I think the main issue in this thread though is that it is just not worth the hit to brand and UX compared to the trivial money it might make.

What's wrong with Paint 3D?

"Get Office" is nothing but an advert, and an annoying one at that considering it continues to appear after MS Office is installed. Paint 3D on the other hand is a supplemental tool to regular Paint that is actually extremely powerful once you get used to it.

I myself actually started out ignoring it, and it hasn't replaced regular Paint for many things, but I find myself going into it on purpose now and for the things it is good at it is VERY good.

People have dismissed it out of hand because of the "3D." The 3D actually refers to Photoshop style layering but you can manipulate the Z axis to generate different 2D image views, which can be output.

The main output of Paint 3D is the same as Paint 2D image files e.g. PNGs, BMPs, and JPG. Sure, you can save a project file, but that is just your source images and Z axis layering information (akin to a Photoshop's PSD).

PS - It also supports PNG transparency layers which is a welcome addition.

> What's wrong with Paint 3D?

For starters, there's that "3D Objects" item underneath "This PC" in the Explorer treeview. It's not relevant to me, and I'm skeptical that it's relevant to the average user.

If I recall, there was a registry key that could be modified to remove this item, but after I applied this modification, a subsequent update undid this. I find this incredibly frustrating.

(Below, I'm speaking to this point more broadly)

It's my computer and I should be able to use it the way that I want to. I have my own user account because others may use this machine differently, and each user deserves the ability to customize their experience based on their preferences.

I honestly don't understand how Microsoft gets to make these decisions on behalf of users. They shouldn't even have a say in the matter at all for anything a user has explicitly configured. Feel free to change the defaults, but at no point should it be considered acceptable to override an explicit configuration of the user.

> Not to mention how you conveniently always reset my settings to your defaults including reinstalling all your ad-crap every 6 months with a new Windows release.

I tend to wonder about that - is it done on purpose or it's because the half-year releases of these semi-annual updates are essentially being applied in upgrade process and not the old service pack way.

Also a "funny" thing from last few days: SO logged onto parents laptop with Microsoft Account credentials and surprise: OS didn't fetch a single piece of data already synchronized into their cloud but uploaded all recent changes made on that device and pushed them onto desktop.

"Feature Updates" are actually entire in-place OS installs on Windows 10. Whether it is intentional that they often fail to migrate certain settings or merely incompetence is difficult to determine.

Windows 10 is a solid OS but they trash it with these awful little pointless decisions

While those are definitely irritations I would like to add something a little (IMO) more important: file path limits.

I can fudge around it in various ways, but it is infuriating: https://serverfault.com/questions/232986/overcoming-maximum-...

The 250-something character path limit was removed several versions ago. It's a 32k limit, now.

Everyone: update your complaints when the situation changes, please.

If Linux users still have to put up with people constantly regurgitating 20-year-old complaints like wifi and audio not working then Windows users should have to put up with it too ;)

For me the Wifi issues in Linux are not 20 year old. They happen to me almost once every week randomly.

It depends a lot on your modem manufacturer though.

The version currently available to us through our IT department suffers from the limit. The updates you mention are held back from us because of 2 problems: one of them being a bitlocker lock-out.

Summary: this is a real, current problem experienced in the enterprise which disrupts work. It's all very well being a lone Dev upgrading to Harvest Festival Cutename at your whim.... but the reality of enterprise updates are that Windows is cumbersome compared to Linux.

Well what do you want? You can't expect anyone to go back in time to improve your situation for you.

The 250-character path limit is gone. It's fixed. You not adopting it is a wholly separate issue.

> Microsoft do cool things like this ...

> So I go and check out a new Windows 10 laptop and the first thing I see, ..., is a bunch of adverts on the start menu and sigh.

Microsoft is not a single team. They have different products, different division owners, different managers, etc. At a company of this size you'll always find people making cool stuff and marketing trying to squeeze in as much content as possible. (and many other teams) This shouldn't be surprising that they coexist.

I'm not saying this is a good state and they do overall good work. Just that releasing procdump and embedding ads are two different worlds visible under one name outside.

As I said in another comment: does MS have a leadership team and CEO? Yes.

This is Nadella's strategy: stop copying Apple and copy Google. TBH, I liked their previous one a lot more.

If you get windows server 2016 and use that as a workstation no crapware is on there and it runs faster. Unfortunately it costs 5 times the price...

Not that expensive: https://ebay.us/G7Jk1S

I have not bought from that seller, but they have sold 765 of them, with 100% positive feedback.

Good old gray-market.

Selling licenses invalid in the US that happen to pass the automated checks since ... Whenever.

I guess the point is none of that affects enterprise users who are joined to a domain and have all of that turned off in group policy.

I use Enterprise connected to a domain and our admins have at least tried very hard to turn off all of this, and I still get ads in the start menu. Now you may well say that we just missed time setting... But our Windows admins aren't incompetent, so to me that just says that MS intentionally obfuscated it even in Enterprise.

I'm using the exact same build of OSX that I started with over 12 years ago. It's been upgraded many times and undergone several machine changes and even moved from hard disk to hard disk.

Its NEVER been rebuilt. With Windows I simply had a process of expecting to do a complete clean reinstall every year or two.

Another of the many big reasons I ditched Windows for OSX.

So you never updated and missed out on security updates? Or what do you mean by "exact same build"?

He says he updates his OS in stead of reinstalling it with the newer version. He probably switched away from Windows during XP or Vista.

Microsoft reinstalls the OS when they do a new release of windows 10 and moves your files over, so on windows 10 you no longer need to do this.

I always wondered if personalities like Satya Nadella browse these forums under different identities to understand what the rest of the tech world might be saying? Wouldn't it be pragmatic for them to align 80% of their priorities with their core users? I guess they can still use the remaining 20% to focus on their obtrusive advertisers!

HN is not their core users.

To further this idea, while Twitter is probably paying for the privilege of being pre-installed, for Windows 10, I wouldn't be surprised if (shortcuts to download) Candy Crush and Twitter are the result of market testing and focus groups and such. Not understanding being able to download apps via the Windows Store may be totally foreign to us, but non-technical users may need some hand-holding.

HN is still a good place to quickly get a lot of_critical_ insights, which is much harder to get from core users.

HN is probably not their core Home Edition users, but I'm pretty sure it's a good window into their Professional and Enterprise Edition users, those who don't nee the crap addendum but just need to work

HN is a fucking tire fire when it comes to comment toxicity for certain segments of readers. We're no better than Reddit or anywhere else really. MS would be wise (and justified) to ignore us completely.

No, even for Enterprise software we're far at one end of the spectrum in terms of competence at using a computer. You're forgetting the vast majority of the work force who work in normal offices, using computers as a tool to get their work done.

That said, we probably articulate our issues better than some, so we're probably still worth listening to.

I would be very surprised if anyone at Microsoft in a position of power gave a damn about the user experience on Windows Desktop these days. I'm pretty sure it is their goal to kill off personal computing.

> Do you see Apple loading up third-party apps into macOS? No?

Well, they used to, around the turn of the century. Not any more.

I think the reason that this situation exists, in the face of a lot of online rebuke, is that they're heading towards a free-to-use version of Windows which will be entirely supported with un-removable crapware and telemetry, and they are testing the market.

Same reason Google TV will fail: because you will find yourself looking at ads 50% of the time.

These things were part of Terry Myerson's realm, as I recall, and he was sort of ejected from Microsoft. Once the agreements that put the things like Candy Crush in the start menu are expired, I expect they won't be returning.

Windows 10 LTSB is really close. Then M$ decides to put candy crap + windows 10 home on the surface PRO. This puppy has great hardware but windows 10 feels like what some MS advertising exec wants everyone to use, not an actual os.

Can't buy it as an individual tho, afaik.

I recently spoke to a rep at a well-known Microsoft Partner; apparently it can be purchased for around $300, including 4 inexpensive CALs necessary to round out the order (5 licenses are required if you don't have an existing volume license agreement):

Explicit instructions for purchasing a Windows 10 LTSC license? https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/2167558-explicit-inst...

LTSB means no WSL, no Hyper-V, no support for VStudio neither for Windows SDKs (which refuse to install or don't install cleanly), so it's not for "developent" anyway.

> LTSB means no WSL, no Hyper-V

"Have now upgraded to Window 10 LTSB build 1607 and Hyper V is fully working." https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1690823-windows-10-en...

"I just installed WSL on LTSC and it worked great." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18271829

Oh, common. Of course you can stuff it on top, but beware of the risks.

Please, see: * https://github.com/Microsoft/WSL/issues/1281

A random Joe says it works <--> Supported and stable configuration.

But you are right HyperV seems to be working as of 1607.

> Oh, common. Of course you can stuff it on top, but beware of the risks. ... But you are right HyperV seems to be working as of 1607.

WSL is also supported in LTSC and can be installed with these instructions from Microsoft: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-manual

See https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/9r48x0/does_wsl_...

Microsoft is large, it contains multitudes.

(with apologies to Walt Whitman)

OEMs are ms' Achilles tendon

This happens on the Surface line.

How do I report this comment?

It has literally nothing to do with the linked post.

You can downvote comments you feel are not relevant. Flag comments that are otherwise breaking rules.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

On my main PC, I need a huge pile of both general-purpose and specialized software, starting from something as ubiquitous as MS office, and down to a long tail of compilers, debuggers, SDKs, drivers for strange hardware I use, and many others. Last time I did clean reinstall of Win10, maybe a few years ago, it took me a couple days to set it up.

That’s why I don’t care about candy crush or twitter. As far as I remember it took me 10 minutes to remove them, and despite I always update my PC, they never came back.

I assure you; they will randomly reinstall with a friendly, focus stealing, notification.

It’s rather disappointing. In fact; I have not used this system since (mostly due to unrelated logistics).

> they will randomly reinstall with a friendly, focus stealing, notification.

Maybe you clicked "use defaults" on some setup messages?

When a software or a web site asks me anything related to privacy, advertisements, tracking, etc., I usually pick best settings for me. The defaults are likely to be the best ones for the developers of software/web site.

This is one part of it. A good user experience doesn't require the user to solve a word puzzle to avoid getting spammed. Good user experience is having good defaults.

This particular windows 10 experience is from an upgrade method. Quite confident I toggled appropriate settings off - but I have done so many deploys / upgrades personally and professionally - perhaps I missed something on this asset?

Either way; I state my experience with the platform.

I assure you; they won't.

Uninstalled apps don't reinstall on upgrade (or at any other time) unless you have something in place that manually does it. This was a major complaint for a long time and MS fixed it 18 months ago or so.

I concur. This used to happen to my system but appears to have been fixed. The last few updates did not reinstall unwanted apps and they have remained uninstalled.

The fact that the stuff is even there to begin with leaves a bad taste in my mouth still, but glad to see the OS is now properly respecting the opt-out at the very least

I’m sorry, but the only way you are correct is if I somehow clicked a prompt to reinstall candy crush whilst interacting with a full screen application.

I, manually; removed candy crush. (Months And months prior)

Candy crush was automatically reinstalled, with a notification, without me initialising it. There was no manual action taken by me except that to close the notification (from notification centre) that it had been reinstalled.

This reinstallation happened within the last 6 months.

Happy to try review audit logs when I am, once again; logistically able.

As noted; I have barely touched this asset since (for unrelated logistical reasons - I’m about 150kms away from it, and it is powered down).. so confident the logs would exist.

I would appreciate you not suggesting it happened otherwise.

I don't mean to sound smug, only offer a perspective. I've heard of what you're talking about, but I've never actually seen it for myself. On every Windows 10 system that I've used, including developer preview (& excluding my work laptop) is one that on which I've installed Win10 myself. During the installation process, I selected 'advanced' settings -- there was a glaring option that said something similar to "allow Microsoft to show ads in places like the start menu and apps" -- That was on by default and I turned it off in quick order. Additionally, I turned off every single setting that attempted to "learn" from my behavior and "provide" what I most likely wanted. I've only set these settings during installation, but here's what I found online. https://www.howtogeek.com/269331/how-to-disable-all-of-windo...

The last time I installed, they designed the installation screen so that it would be non-obvious that you could toggle those settings off. For instance, they had the link to the page to toggle those options on the bottom in small text which was a similar color to the background color.

That was a while ago, so admittedly it may have changed since then.

Regardless, when you have Windows set up, they then scatter those settings throughout various menus instead of having one centralized place where you can turn off all the advertising / some of the telemetry.

They also seem to be adding more of this as time goes on, which your one time disabling won't apply for. I turned off everything I could find, only to have more advertisements appear in my start menu months later due to what I believe was them adding in more advertisements in an update. I then had to go and toggle off.

I want to like Microsoft, I really do, but they don't make it easy. Advertisements in the operating system that I paid for is entirely galling to me.

I'm running win10 at home and with the exception of cortana conspiring to escape her banishment, I don't think I've ever seen a direct advert as such.

I upgraded back when they were doing the free upgrade, laundering a slightly questionable license in the process. Are the pre-loaded bits and pieces fairly new? Was there no opt-out on first run?

I'm not doubting they are there - it is Microsoft after all - just confused why they would choose to spam paying customers when people with keys from, hypothetically, long expired MSDN packs are still chugging along with no interference...

I did this too. But after an update they came back. Also huge banner ads for OneDrive started appearing across the top of Explorer windows.

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