Comment by JCWasmx86 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by JCWasmx86 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I recently installed Windows 10 in a VM to port a program to Windows (Was a horror story). On the left side in the start menu I have ads and other crap: "Trending searches", "Trending videos from the web", "Games for you", "Trending news" and some other stuff like a reminder for the International day for Monuments and Sites.

On the right side I have a weather/news widget from some really shady or local newspapers about "celebrities", a lot of clickbait, stock data etc.

And obviously the first time I opened Edge I was greeted with some annoying banner, that I should login etc.

A default installation of an OS should only come with the bare amount of software necessary. If they had asked: "Do you want to have news/recommendations? - Yes/No,never ask again" it would be really okay as there was no forced consent, but installing it by default is simply a bad decision. (From a users' perspective, it probably makes sense from a corporate perspective as otherwise they wouldn't do it)

It seems there is enough pushback from Microsoft's enterprise clients because the W10 LTSC versions lack all the adware and most of the spyware that is pushed on the regular versions. Of course, they are not advertised anywhere and buying licenses through regular channels is impossible for a home user or a small company.

I haven't compared resource usage between my previous W10 Pro VM and my current W10 LTSC VM but it seems to start up much faster, and of course the aggravation from using it is way lower.

Ironically, my employer just replaces all of Microsoft's crap with its own crap, pushed out to every client through GPOs and SCCM and other tools. So we get full screen banners, sometimes by launching PowerPoint and showing a slide, about things like cybersecurity awareness or [minority group] History Month. And it takes many minutes to boot up and login and get a functional desktop with all that, plus the scanning by McAfee and Nessus and Tanium.

Well, with your employer that's work time you get paid for. I don't know why anyone would subject themselves to this for free though.

All of these gross advertising decisions baked into the operating system disgust me. Not to mention all the tracking they probably do to you on top of it.

The best solution I've found is Windows 10 IoT Enterprise. It feels like an alternate timeline where Microsoft didn't dive headfirst into manipulative advertising practices. None of those pointless bloatware apps, no blatant advertising loitered across the OS.

I don't want tabloid trash baked into my start menu. It would be one thing if we were actually allowed to curate and choose the news, but it's all selected for us. It feels like they're trying to manipulate the way people think with decisions like that.

> The best solution I've found is Windows 10 IoT Enterprise

What is the difference between this one and LTSC?

According to MS, the IoT edition is "missing" many "features" --- which in other words "doesn't have the crap you probably don't want if you only want an OS."

It is missing absolutely nothing useful. It also will receive security patches through 2031, unlike the normal LTSC distribution which gets 5 years of support. You have complete control over which updates, if any, are installed.

It is a big pain in the neck to get an LTSC or LTSC IoT license.

It is worth it.

> I don't want tabloid trash baked into my start menu. It would be one thing if we were actually allowed to curate and choose the news, but it's all selected for us. It feels like they're trying to manipulate the way people think with decisions like that.

No, they're paid handsomely by others who are trying to manipulate the way people think.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com