The new Windows update made me think I'd installed malware | Hacker News Reader

The new Windows update made me think I'd installed malware

pcgamer.com

115 pointscannibalXxx72 comments

How is this not literally the same kind of monopolistic behavior (abusing dominance in one platform to gain an advantage in another) that Microsoft has gotten in trouble over in the past?

Between injecting "hey edge is a perfectly good browser" when trying to download Chrome [0, 1], repeatedly clobbering default browser settings across OS updates [2], ignoring the default browser settings [3], and now injecting prompts of "hey you should use our search engine", I'm surprised that the current administration isn't seeking any antitrust action against Microsoft. Maybe they have their hands full between suing Amazon, Facebook, and Google, but I would expect this to be an open-and-shut case (especially since Microsoft has a history of doing this).

[0] https://www.extremetech.com/internet/329450-microsoft-edge-g...

[1] https://www.pcmag.com/news/microsoft-is-displaying-multiple-...

[2] https://www.computerworld.com/article/3032751/windows-10-for...

[3] https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/windows-11/micr...

Because US vs MS (2001) was overturned and a slap-on-the-wrist settlement offered instead. Microsoft was never punished for tying MSIE to Windows.

This is worse, much worse. In the past they got in trouble over simply including IE with the OS, where it was just present, and they were not even pestering you to use it.

Now the FTC is completely incompetent and can't control itself from bringing overbroad cases that are mostly heavy breathing with too little legal standing. These anti-trust suits keep getting tossed. Lina Khan lost against Amazon, lost against Microsoft, lost against Google, and now they're going after Apple for the App Store instead of Microsoft for this.

And to think an entire chain of individuals were involved in designing and approving those popups at Microsoft, and not once did anyone bother to ask:

“Maybe we should fuck off?”

If you happen to be responsible and reading this the answer is yes.

Microsoft needs to learn the meaning of consent. They're the software equivalent of a creepy guy in a bar offering "back massages" (i.e. Bing) to every girl he talks to.

"Would you like a back massage baby?" (Not now / Ask again in one week)

The guy being thrown out of the window meme after questioning the rest of the committee is actually a documentary.

It's not really an entire chain. Only a small handful of big bosses (maybe only one) can really be held responsible. Everyone else basically gets told "if you don't go along with this, we'll fire you and get someone else to".

Is it possible that the team responsible for this isn't even in the US, so that maybe their position with their job isn't as tolerant of the coders doing anything but banging code?

Because people feel so angry with malware authors and scammers it's hard to accept that those people may themselves be under duress. In some places kids get invited to a "dream tech job" interview only to find the door locked behind them and a list of 100 computers to infect each day if they want food.

Not saying M$ do that, but given their ethics track record and the harm their substandard cruft wreaks, I'd only be mildly surprised to find out otherwise.

are you telling me that Microsoft would kidnap kids to code MS Windows, their core offering, and then threaten them if they don't deliver?

or any of their other, billion-dollar-tier revenue generating offerings, like Azure, or Active Directory, or MSSQL, or Xbox, etc.?

do you have any idea how the FAANGM (MANGA?) world works?

I am sorry for confusing you with humour.

How else were they gonna keep their job? /s

> Really, Microsoft? Most of us rely on Windows, it has an absolute stranglehold on the OS market, [...]

It only has a stranglehold on you, if you or your employer let it.

Personally, I did the hard switch from MS one day in grad school, in a lab where we had to meet with companies on an almost daily basis, but many students disliked how a particular software company behaved. (Besides company practices, the reps I saw in lab meetings and demos/posters did this weird interrogating ideas-stealing, unlike any other reps.) Knowing this, the PI told my research group that nobody had to meet with this particular company if they didn't want to, "...but don't you dare use their software."

Challenge accepted. I installed Linux, made a Web page for other people in my lab to do the same ("https://www.neilvandyke.org/lab-linux-1999/"), and was very quickly glad to be free of that company.

(I also volunteered to be the one to meet with the tobacco-involved conglomerate company, which was the other company that many students didn't like, since I wanted to still be seen as a team player, and it was the lesser of two evils, from my perspective thinking about the future of information/computation/communication.)

While I understand your point of view, I think you are over-simplifying.

I use Linux, macos, and Windows. I have specific reasons for using each for a specific use case.

I use Linux for work because I appreciate the ability to customize my interface exactly how I need it. But it's also a lot of work to get many different programs configured and working together.

I use macOS for iOS development and for my personal laptop when traveling because the battery life on the Mac is easily 5x what my Linux laptop gets.

I use Windows for gaming because I have Game Pass and I have no desire to spend hours or days fiddling with Linux to see if it's possible to run games with AntiCheat and other stupid DRM. So I have a Windows computer just for gaming.

I have no desire to pigeonhole myself into one system for purely ideological reasons. I consider myself pragmatic.

> I have no desire to pigeonhole myself into one system for purely ideological reasons. I consider myself pragmatic.

"Purely ideological reasons" aren't the only reasons to avoid MS. I could talk for hours about pragmatic reasons for avoiding them, and have. The Web has copious information about reasons to avoid them, for decades.

Given this, still dismissing it as "purely ideological reasons", and suggesting how MS can be a part of this healthy breakfast, might as well be PR handling on their behalf.

As Zizek would say, you have to be most wary when the ideological subjects start saying they are acting without ideology.

I wish Microsoft (and others) would understand that "no" means "no", not "keep assaulting me with the same question later under different pretexts".

The problem with updates. For me at least. Is that I'm never sure if I really hate them because they're worse, or if I hate them because I've gotten used to how things are.

Windows XP was peak os for me, but I think it's better now overall, I just preferred/learned XP.

Well, the question is do you think something gets better occasionally?

Windows XP was good for its time. Vista was a disaster but I understand its necessity. Windows 7 was actively good. Windows 8 was a disaster. Windows 10 has been just okay. Windows 11 is an unmitigated disaster.

Windows is now such a disaster that it is permanent VM bait, and I never see that changing ever again.

Why is Windows 11 a disaster? What am I missing?

The self-advertising pop-ups always have responses like "I obey" or "remind me later". Never "go away forever".

CHOOSE A REASON TO QUIT ONEDRIVE

You have a choice, and that choice is to simply stop using Windows. I made this choice around 6 months ago because of these shenanigans. My production machine now runs Linux, and I'm more productive now when I was with Windows, but I also keep a remote Windows virtual machine running for those times that I still need to interface with this annoying legacy operating system.

Tech companies sure love to run the domestic abuser's playbook:

* I want to know everything about you and who you talk to (privacy violations)

* I can change deals unilaterally and do whatever I want without your say-so (disrespecting user agency)

* You can't leave me (vendor lock-in)

don't forget the occasional charm offensive, esp. after they overstep, and short-lived honeymoon phase before they do it again

“I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.”

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

Mutatis mutandis.

Mac updates made me think I had malware too. It randomly pops up a box that says System Update needs your administrator password. Completely unprompted, zero context. Sketchy as hell looking. Happens every time MacOS downloads an automatic update.

Agreed. Password prompting for installs on macos needs a lot of love. It’s really encouraging users to become comfortable with potentially dangerous behavior.

Whilst I agree that this is an annoyance and can form bad habits in users (as another comment pointed out), in modern macOS systems, what you’re actually being asked for is the credentials of the “volume owner” to perform a change to the sealed system volume. This is indicated in the dialog, but agree that it could be clearer and less jarring.

Does it say what program need administrador privileges? IIRC Linux are doing this since around 20 years ago

Here's a pic of the popup https://discussions.apple.com/thread/254241562?sortBy=best . To me, it sounds trivial to name your malware app "System Update", and that's probably the best thing to name it. So you can't know who or what is requesting full root access, completely out of the blue, unless maybe it says somewhere deep in Activity Monitor. My habit is to always close it, and if I want to update, go to System Update myself. Then at least I know I probably triggered the popup.

I was thinking the same thing. Recently, a file I've never seen before named "bingchatinstaller.exe" has been trying to connect to the internet on my machine. I am blocking it.

It shows up as unsigned. Is this really from Microsoft? An unsigned binary shows up out of nowhere and wants internet access?

That screams malware to me.

Even if it was officially MS it would still be malware.

There is some deep cognitive dissonance going on with windows users in the last 5 years especially I've noticed. Nearly every new thing that happens has the people I know who are on it complaining loudly, desperately trying to hold on to old versions, creating all sorts of workarounds to fight against the operating system

But the same people will still take every opportunity to make the same tired jokes about how I must need to jump through so many hoops to just go about my day on a linux system (for example, opening a terminal to update one package, which I just find more convenient than graphical package manager frontends)

It's a fascinating dynamic. Seemingly the more their trust is betrayed by Microsoft, the more they feel the need to parrot this anti-marketing, as if driven by a need to justify their dedication

I used to play right back into this tribalism, rib them about their "corporate overlords in their infinite wisdom" but the situation keeps getting worse and I have gotten older and I no longer even feel vindicated as this platform decay progresses, just sad for my friends, who won't even consider extricating themselves from this abusive dynamic

There's no real alternative for many things people care about. Windows 11 can still run Windows 98 software with minimal headache. Maybe Valve with Proton will get there someday. If it's not your daily driver e.g. using a MacBook for day-to-day, it's tolerable albeit annoying. Just go make a coffee while boot hangs on the "preparing windows updates" screen for 5 minutes.

Valve and Proton is pretty dang good, tbh.

No issues, even with AAA games like Cyberpunk 2077. Anti-cheat is a thing they're working on too, but ultimately it'll require kernel modules and I'm not cool with that, but more in the "not gonna play those games" sense.

But I wasn’t talking about video games; I have a Steam Deck and I like it. I have lots of old / unmaintained Windows software for various gadgets that doesn’t have alternatives and has major blocking issues in Wine-like environments, up to and including failing to launch. For those, a Windows VM or a dedicated Windows system is much less of a headache.

I mean I think Proton's focus is on games, and it's been quite a while since I ran into any that didn't work pretty trivially. I guess I don't game enough to bother trying to get malware-like anti-cheat things to play nice with my systems but I think that's more out of my distrust outweighing my need to play the game rather than because it's a headache, but that does seem to be the last real frontier of compatibility in that space

As for other things, like various hyperspecific professional software people are locked into, I've got nothing but sympathy for those folks. It's a rough situation and it's not their fault. It'll take people who care about those domains doing software projects to help open up those areas more. I will note that I know people producing content who have been going over to FOSS video editors and the like lately, and I can't say for sure whether this is the platforms getting worse or the FOSS getting better, but I think either way alternatives exert positive pressure on the ecosystem as a whole. I do think it would help a lot if professionals in many areas would be a bit more willing to at least try alternatives, as the reaction to projects aiming to give them choices tends to be derision and dismissal. Like, okay some stuff isn't there yet, but I think it would benefit you if it was, even if you personally don't use it

If there's anything people should have learned from the last few decades, it's that no company will ever love or care about you, and a company that deserves your trust is rare to the point of near-extinction in this environment. And yet people actively bemoaning how these companies are shaking them down will at the same time act and speak against their own interests out of brand loyalty. Perhaps it is because so many have come to define themselves by their choices as consumers. It's hard not to see identity itself as a sort of scam in this kind of environment

After every Windows update I tend to open Everything search, look for certain "msedge.exe", "bing", "teams", "onedrive", and "outlook" files that may have creeped into my computer. I've learned which to delete, and which files I should leave alone. I use "EMCO UnLock IT" to get rid of the locked files.

Rarely I also hunt down garbage in the registry, and that also took experience to learn what to leave alone.

That is sooo much hassle just to install a plain update. At what point does it become enough of a distraction for people to abandon windows?

> That is sooo much hassle just to install a plain update. At what point does it become enough of a distraction for people to abandon windows?

Or, alternatively, at what point does it become enough of a distraction for people to abandon automatic updates, or updating software in general? After all, if you don't update, you won't have to suffer any of these distractions (or, at least, any new distractions).

For us, it might be easy to say "just switch to an alternate operating system", but keeping the same operating system and blocking all updates can be less hassle for a lot of people.

Yes, it's ridiculous. It's more of an OCD hobby for me, where I experience satisfaction "fighting" Microsoft every time I delete their garbage.

Based on the sheer number of users, never.

Let's apply a bit of logic similar to the Drake Equation. In the total number of Windows installs, how many of them have users that are even aware of any of this? of that number, how many of them are technically savvy enough to care? of that number, how many of them take the time to do anything about? of that number, how many of them do not read this forum?

It recently passed that point for me, and I've moved my Win10 computers to Linux (Ubuntu for now).

I've tried several times to actually move to a Linux distro, whether Ubuntu, Pop_OS, Mint, even Zorin.

I found none that have the same quality of graphics crispiness (for my 4K laptop screen) and "snappiness". Windows still seems to work better overall than my experience with Linux. And also the drivers and apps (like browsers) in Windows seem more stable.

The (weak) laptop i was using for travelling felt in need for an upgrade. Just browsing and vscode

Stuck Linux mint on it and changed my mind.

Haven’t quite built the momentum for main desktop due to some windows stuff I need but that was certainly eye opening. (Thus far only had cli nix experience)

Linux Mint saved me too. I had to upgrade my PC that was on Windows 8.1 because 8.1 was no longer receiving security updates. The process to upgrade to Windows 10 was painful and then it failed during the install and the PC became inoperative. I installed Linux Mint - very straightforward and easy, computer now works faster and is rock solid with no problems whatsoever.

Recently installed windows 11 on a new pc, after many years of linux and mac. Question after question asking for consent to tracking and personalized ads. Why are personalized ads an install step of an operating system?

And am I sure I don't want to buy an Office 365 and OneDrive subscription? Yes, yes, definitely yes, can I please use my computer now? Sure, I'll sign up for a Microsoft account (why?) but please let me use it.

Oh a new start menu, it's in the middle now rather than to the left, sure. Click to open... Spotify, Linkedin, and Grammarly pre installed... Why? And why is a news feed of click bait tabloid articles a built in feature of my taskbar?

Oh, look, solitaire is still available, haven't played it since the days of Microsoft xp, let me check it out. Ah but I can't just play it... First, do I consent to Microsoft and it's 805 partners tracking me for personalized ads? EIGHT HUNDRED AND FIVE?

I swear the adware toolbars of old were less terrible than the windows operating system of now.

> LinkedIn

Press Shift + Ctrl + Win + Alt + L for a surprise

I was actually extra annoyed with that Linkedin icon in that it reappeared after my first uninstall, and only permanently disappeared after a second uninstall. I was half joking that I would return the PC if it appears a third time. Guess the joke's on me...

They just stole your data rather than pestering you and doing it anyway.

Scrolling this website on mobile made me think I’d installed malware.

I was reading the bit complaining about pop ups in the browser at the same time as my browser was blocking one of theirs

Microsoft exemplifies the problem very well, but Microsoft is not the problem. Incentives are the problem. It is very profitable to treat your customers badly, and this is true for MS as well as for the site. As well as for Apple, Google, Amazon and everyone else.

You don’t get to a higher market cap than Apple by not rent-seeking under every rock you can find.

I hate how unabated thirst seems to be the trend in apps these days. The best app does its job and stays out of your way. It doesn’t exist so you can pad your promo packet.

I guess Microsoft realised that most users would install "third-party" adware anyway, and decided to get in on the action.

Fortunately these days computers have gotten to the point where you can run an old OS from them, like 98/2K in the browser[1][2], or make a little VM and install it, so you can remind yourself that MS wasn't always like that.

IMHO the messages coming with updates started becoming intensely creepy around Windows 10, the first time the unskippable "all your files are exactly where you left them" ominous ransomware-like screen appeared:

https://www.reddit.com/r/windows/comments/3x88yj/all_your_fi...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15763418

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38376731

There are only two things I can completely rely upon with Microsoft:

1) Amazing Windows backwards compatibility. I can still run executables compiled back in 2000 on the most modern versions.

2) To screw over everybody they do business with and their users, if it will make them a bit more money.

I am a great fan of (1), but (2) is the reason I have as little to do with them as I can.

That's it!

1. Couldn't even get to try TES III Morrowind working properly on Win10, worked flawlessly on Linux + Proton.

Not perfect sure, but I don't think any other modern system exists that can still run most executables compiled for it nearly a quarter of a century ago?

Still not enough to make me want to use it, but I am genuinely impressed by that.

My Windows PC is only for gaming. That said, I found a simple way to avoid the worst of the Windows update problems: Always stay at least one major version behind.

That means lagging on Windows 7 or 8 when 10 was current, and lagging on Windows 10 until Windows 12 comes out. Microsoft puts most of their offensive junk on the latest Windows, but still back-ports useful features to Windows 10, like WSLg.

It's not a perfect system, and I may get malware someday from missing security updates if Windows 10 goes EoL before Windows 12 comes out, but having the occasional ransomware hit a gaming PC seems almost less annoying than the current nasty Windows updates. I wish I were joking. I have enough stress in my life where I don't want to fight with my OS as well.

I run linux/NixOS on all my important machines, including work.

The worst part is they we know that they can build a version of Windows without all this crap because the Enterprise editions can easily be configured without it.

Tools like litent, tiny11, etc, also show that its fairly trivial for MS to reduce the footprint of the OS.

It also feels to me like a bunch of independent teams working without a cohesive vision. Some tools like Notepad, Terminal, and WSL are getting built without any advertising garbage while other parts of the OS are overflowing with them.

Users really need to migrate away from windows. It really has no redeeming qualities post W10. The sooner you get the heck away from the Evil monolith, the better.

1. Do assholish things that make people want to flock to Apple

2. Give Apple such a high market share that they get sued for monopolistic practices

3. ???

4. Profit

Sadly the line between malware and upgrades from major platform providers is blurring.

Are there (non-malware) tools that help clean up this madness?

Rm -rf /

The irony of reading this article on pc gamer and getting a pop up for them sending me notifications in my browser was priceless.

Apple do this with software that doesn't participate in an Apple Developer account.

It's complete bullshit, because the actual notarization service for Apple Developers DOES NOTHING ABOUT MALWARE AT ALL.

Yet they boldly claim, Chromium, for example is potentially MALWARE worded and presented in a way that suggests it probably is Malware.

Every single argument I've heard in some attempt to justify this is that it makes the Macos platform more secure. Except how that is achieved is anyone's guess, since there is no quality scanning whatsoever.

It's just another rent seeking move by a company that gives no sh!ts.

Windows is the "Baby It's Cold Outside" of operating systems.

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