Bing Wallpaper showing Ad for Harry Potter and Fantastic beasts box set | Hacker News Reader

Bing Wallpaper showing Ad for Harry Potter and Fantastic beasts box set

thurrott.com

109 pointsneogodless73 comments

Since this thread is mostly people complaining about Windows, here are two more fun anecdotes

1. I installed a new Windows-only gaming setup. Out of the box it was able to figure out how IPv6 networking works here but didn't get IPv4. So for the 10-20 minutes it took to fix that I was able to see what's a priority for Microsoft (so it works even with just IPv6) and what's non-critical so you can demand IPv4

    Adverts everywhere: Critical, Ipv4 not needed
    Turning *off* the adverts: Non-essential, need Ipv4 or you can't change this

2. In my day job we look after the software which runs exams. For obvious reasons this software cannot do anything except present your exam and accept whatever your answers are. The University doesn't have buckets of money and almost all its machines run Windows, so exams happen on Windows. With a locked down environment you can still write the formulae you were supposed to memorize on your tits and then wear a top you can pull down to look at them "discretely" the same as in a paper exam, but you can't ask ChatGPT to write your essay about Singapore's housing policy for your politics exam or have it tell you whether the X-ray in figure 1 shows evidence for options A, B, C or D in your 3rd year medicine exam.

Despite the fact that this software is as locked down as we could possibly make it, and so the machine definitely cannot "install OneDrive" even if the student really wanted to instead of taking their exam, Windows will still sometimes interrupt their exam to ask them if they want to install OneDrive.

> write the formulae you were supposed to memorize on your tits

Mnemonic devices. Oh, the privilege.

I too liked the detour about cheating.

I wish we could stay on topic. Every time a submission is about Windows, 90% of comments are either:

- "how is it surprising that Windows is bad? [unrelated story]"

- "linux linux linux switch to linux"

To be fair there because most of the submissions about Windows are negative ones, which means the comments are either "Windows sucks" or "I'm glad I stopped using Windows"

The last time I remember hearing positive news about Windows was the Win 7 launch.

Were people not happy about WSL?

> The last time I remember hearing positive news about Windows was the Win 7 launch.

For me it was Windows 95 finally getting rid of Trumpet Winsock. Been a steady decline ever since.

Don't get me started . . .

For many years there has been "Windows Spotlight" through a number of Windows versions, which is the "regular" way for desktop background "wallpaper" to be autoupdated, as well as the modern "lock screen" which appears before the desktop comes up.

Then one day "Bing Wallpaper" was added as an extra feature for those already having the Bing app, which is intended for users who want more carefully-targeted ads and search results than you get from merely using Bing as the default search engine on your browser.

And if you didn't already have the Bing app there arose a subtle barrage of encouragement to persuade as many users as possible that "everyone" already has this "essential" Microsoft feature so you better not miss out. It's free after all.

When Bing Wallpaper became a thing it seemed like some beautiful eye candy to get more people's attention to something that was kind of a dud.

Later after a certain point many users would have had to opt out of Bing Wallpaper since then.

Co-incidentally, after gaining the impression that usage goals for the Bing Wallpaper were not being met after a while, the good old built-in Windows Spotlight has become flakier than ever and completely dysfunctional lots of the time. Simultaneously most of the "usual" expert wallpaper advice no longer applies, "maybe" because changes under the hood to accommodate sharing the normal wallpaper pipeline with the Bing alternative have gummed things up like never before.

However for quite a while there you could readily choose between Windows Spotlight or Bing Wallpaper and it worked either way as expected, then it all just kind of crumbled one day.

It doesn't matter what search engine you use now, most pro remedies for users who want Windows-curated wallpaper either settle for installing Bing Wallpaper or don't work any more.

Looks like "subtle" pressure toward the tracking-and-ad-riddled "choice" for those who want their Windows desktop to appear to do the same thing it was doing beforehand.

You'll have to admit both those comment types are at least tangentially relevant.

Recently had to install some stuff on a Windows laptop, test it, then ship it out to a customer, and my god the culture shock coming from Mac (and previously Linux and before that Windows)! Randomly selected (and not particularly good at that) rotating wallpapers, random unrelated facts on the log in page. Had to nuke as many of them as possible, but they don't make it easy.

heaven forbid you leave the "stories" toggled on, it will just blast you in the face with the most garbage political stories ever written every single day. Edge is the worst offender, should be illegal and everyone involved with implementing and approving it should be in prison.

Was fixing something on my dad’s computer and the start menu was featuring some story like “10 children swept away by floodwaters to their deaths” in some faraway country. What a terrible vibe to start the day with. Sensational news has no place in an operating system.

I was setting up my kid’s laptop last year. Parental controls enabled, with the kid’s age entered. Start menu was showing stories about beheadings and murders.

Windows is rotten to the core.

The scariest part is just how many people stick with the default settings, and get this stuff pumped into their brains 24/7.

I hope some day we’ll take this as seriously as environmental protection. Which granted isn’t perfect either, but a lot more than we do about all the mental toxicity being spewed at scale by large tech firms.

The start menu shows news stories?!

I haven’t used Windows for more than 30 seconds since XP. Every time I hear about what it’s become, I’m just baffled. I never considered it to be good, but at least it tried. Now it seems like another example of big companies hating their customers and wishing they’d just get out of the way of the money coming in.

> I hope some day we’ll take this as seriously as environmental protection. Which granted isn’t perfect either, but a lot more than we do about all the mental toxicity being spewed at scale by large tech firms.

The problem is that, as we are currently seeing, that any administration can reverse any policy previously set. So any regulation is not a permanent solution.

> The problem is that, as we are currently seeing, that any administration can reverse any policy previously set. So any regulation is not a permanent solution.

Depends on what you mean by "can". You're right in that any administration that successfully abandons the rule of law can do anything they want, but that's not a problem inherent to regulation as a concept. Regulation is a good solution, but it won't work when a corrupt, lawless regime is in power. It's kinda like saying we shouldn't vaccinate because being forced to drink toilet water can kill us.

As for not being a permanent solution, that's okay. No regulation is meant to be permanent. Regulations are supposed to change, but there's supposed to be a process to follow and that process is supposed to ensure that the change happens for the good of the society and is governed by the will of the people.

The fact that none of those prerequisites are currently satisfied does not imply that regulation doesn't work.

This administration has gotten SCOTUS to agree that many of these agencies are under control of POTUS and not independent agencies. That means the agencies work at the whims of POTUS or else POTUS will replace the agency leadership with people that will. That will see an exodus of other people that would potentially put up any resistance.

So I'm not really sure where you seem to think an abandonment of rule of law is at play

The rule of law means that everyone, including the administration, has to follow the laws. When an administration repeatedly ignores or defies court orders, they have abandoned the rule of law.

https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/hSGAC-Minori...

A glacial collapse did indeed cause wild flash flooding in Tibet and Nepal and many people were killed including people from around the world and many locals, it reaches back home in USAID cuts eliminated a program to detect and warn about this very thing.

It's not particularly "sensational" news but a tragedy with many global connections.

I just wanted to launch Notepad, dog.

Speaking of notepad why the fuck is notepad a onedrive app now.

I just want to take a couple of notes, I need to write down a handful of bullet points to remember the name of an NPC or two for the Pathfinder game I'm playing in, and notepad is like "set up your OneDrive account!".

Kiss my ass Windows

It's slow, too. On corporate hardware it can take several seconds for the "new" Notepad to open and actually start rendering keypresses. Instead I use Notepad2 and Notepad++ which are instant on the same hardware, like Notepad used to be.

That may be true and bonus points for successfully managing to connect it back to everyone’s favorite subject, American politics.

There’s a place for it and it’s the news where I can consume it when I feel like it. Not the application launcher of my operating system.

I guess the silver lining is that China will most certainly implement a similar program now.

Even after disabling the crap wallpapers and setting my own, by default windows heavily compresses wallpapers to the point where the artefacts are very noticeable on a 4K display, requiring a registry edit to fix.

I'd be more surprised if this was the first time Microsoft did this.

I checked the download page[0] and next to the download button they say they will do this

>You will also receive in-app notifications with promotional offers from Microsoft

[0] https://www.bing.com/apps/wallpaper?pc=w011&brand=bing

> in-app notifications

I would not describe a full-screen wallpaper, that is, the entire functionality of the software, to be a "notification".

Not true for me. Not sure where author is and why (s)he is seeing this (wallpapers seem to be country based.)

https://bingwalls.com/

https://bing.com/ and use the < > to move through history.

Wallpapers are probably randomly selected in a small pool of available pictures. I used 3 different Windows laptops today: one was showing the Harry Potter ad and the two others a nice view of Bamberg.

Oof. Why does this seem worse than just showing everyone the ad? Maybe because people like me will go "not my experience" and brush off the complainers. Diabolical

Not sure either but I got the ad today. Previous wallpapers match what I see on bingwalls, but not the today's.

I think (based completely on anecdotal evidence) both the Windows desktop and lock screen pull their backgrounds from a different source than the Bing home page. I would often see a very different collection of image on my Windows machine (when I still had one) vs what I would get from the Bing Wallpaper GNOME extension I use on my Linux machines.

I recently wiped Windows off my wife's machine after the last straw broke with Windows - it gave her a full screen prompt after a reboot that forced her back to Edge and copied all of her local documents to OneDrive.

She only plays a handful of games and browses the web, Bazzite was a no-brainer replacement.

That OneDrive thing was what convinced me to finally get rid of Windows. I bought a new machine, copied my old desktop over, and only then realized all my tax returns and other sensitive documents had been copied to a Microsoft server somewhere.

Microsoft seems determined to destroy every bit of remaining customer goodwill. Who approved this ad?

Microsoft has zero pride in their operating system and no respect for their users.

Ads on install, ads in the start menu, ads in the toolbar, ads in wallpaper, ads in notifications, ads on the lockscreen, ads in widgets, ads in file explorer...

I wonder what Windows would be like if it was split off Microsoft. Technically it has far sufficient revenue to keep being maintained and updated well, but I guess the quest for ever more revenue would still lead to it becoming more and more enshittified.

I wonder what it would become if it was split off Microsoft and given to two competing companies.

Right the sad thing is that Microsoft is a great place for an OS to live because they have the money to make the right calls... they just don't seem to have the will to do so or the ability to identify someone to own it. The company has devolved to a core cesspit of middle-management.

I don't think it is the first time they do this, at least on one occasion, they have shown an ad for Tomb Raider on the lock screen.

And I am evidently an minority here, but I don't really mind. I don't really have a problem with ads, I have a problem with annoying ads. Popups, banners, billboards, notifications, video segments, etc... they grab your attention and take up valuable space, I hate these, and I think everyone else does.

But here it is just a wallpaper that happens to be branded, it is not particularly distracting, in fact, I find it pretty good overall. I like this simple, low contrast style for a wallpaper on the background.

And that Tomb Raider lockscreen image from before was more than good, to me, it was one of the best!

Of course, you may have different tastes, but and I can easily imagine someone being unaware that it is an ad (or not caring) and making it his new default.

I understand why people wouldn't want this, but I didn't expect that much outrage. I mean, it is Windows 11, and you are letting Microsoft pick wallpapers for you, what did you expect? Getting to see the wallpaper behind all these much more intrusive ads, notifications and AI crap seems like a rather impressive feat. So much that I would have expected people who got there to have given up on complaining, or better, given up on Windows. And the author runs an "insider preview", talk about masochism!

> don't really have a problem with ads,

I paid for windows. I am the customer. I am not not the product.

I actually like Windows, or did for most of my nearly 30 year career. In the past I have defended it against the "winblows" crowd.

Now there are no new features that users want, the start menu is a progressive web app, explorer takes 2x3 times the resources it did in 10 and does less, and they have lost all respect for me as a consumer.

I'm one ad away from migrating everything I own to a system that respects me. It will be an investment, but I suspect it will be worth it.

The new macs look nice.

> The new macs look nice

theyre a nice stepstone but after a couple years on a macbook im looking at just using my fedora desktop fulltime

If I showed up at your place and painted some tactful ads on the walls, would you have an issue with it?

Or, if you bought a mattress and discovered that it hums some well-targeted, inoffensive jingle at 11pm every night, would that be fine?

Ads intruding deeper and deeper into your "personal" space are an issue even if they're executed well. Now, for free products, maybe that's fine. But you paid for that OS, and now it comes with ads on multiple surfaces.

> If I showed up at your place and painted some tactful ads on the walls, would you have an issue with it?

Yes, because I didn't call you to paint anything on my walls. But if I hired you to paint me something on my wall every month, and gave you total freedom, then no, I wouldn't mind an occasional tactful ad. In fact, I know some people who buy (or steal) ad posters they find beautiful and put them on their wall.

> Or, if you bought a mattress and discovered that it hums some well-targeted, inoffensive jingle at 11pm every night, would that be fine?

No, I don't want my mattress to hum, mattresses are not supposed to hum. But if I bought a picture frame and that picture frame came preloaded with a tasteful ad, then I would be fine, because picture frames are supposed to have pictures in it. I can always change it later.

That's what I wanted to point out. That ad is a picture that goes where pictures should go, and blends in. It is not like an ad banner that goes where content should be, a billboard that block my view of the landscape, or that humming that definitely shouldn't come out of a mattress.

> But you paid for that OS

That component, Bing Wallpaper is free, I think. And I believe you can have it on other OSes. Bundling ad-supported software and services in paid software is still a dubious practice, but in this particular case, I don't think it is that bad, as in, pretty much everything else is worse in Windows.

> I don't really have a problem with ads, I have a problem with annoying ads

I'm of the opinion that basically all ads are annoying.

Anything that wants to take my attention away from the thing I actually want to do feels very hostile to me

I'll go further. Advertising is at it's very core an abuse.

They took Aristotles rhetoric, and turned it into a slimy dead thing that seeks profit rather than truth.

Advertising is sophistry, and sophistry is evil.

Subjectively I like the artwork, and I'm used to way worse ads on Windows like Bing popups when I open Chrome. In fact, that this extension has been delivering genuinely pleasant landscapes, cityscapes, animal photos etc. for many years now makes it so frustrating and jarring to get ads here too. I uninstalled it, but I doubt they care, since if they can't serve me ads how else would they extract value from me using the product.

I don't mind dumb ads (no tracking, etc), but it comes down to enshittification. Microsoft is making money at our expense.

I had these features off on Windows where possible. However I can’t imagine using Windows these days. The only time I switch to Windows is to play Marathon/Destiny these days. Other than that, I have no reason to use it. I imagine so many others would have a similar experience.

> Why this level of nickel and diming. This is atrocious UX, its ad over entire screen, For a moment I thought I installed some adware malware.

Our definition of 'malware' has really drifted, then. This is absolutely, positively, 100% malware. Just because it comes with your OS doesn't mean it's not.

Satya Nadella said he was going to make Windows less cr*p. Having a wallpaper advert is clownish and grotesque, so did he lie?

There's probably nothing he can do about it, the same way Microsoft Teams doesn't have an explicit "Make Teams Crap" policy, it presumably happens in spite of the wishes of Microsoft for it not to be crap.

Whatever. The first time someone's complaint makes its way to Nadella's desk, he has the power to stop it. Since that hasn't happened, he's clearly not that concerned OR he's so not in charge that little fiefdoms exist that choose to ignore senior management. Neither is a good look for Nadella.

Is it clickable? As in do they get Click-through rate (CTR)? Otherwise it is really hard to calculate any value for these.

I have never seen a person walk up to a billboard and click it.

I've never seen a person click on an ad.

I have seen people click on ads before—by accident, due to a terrible close button or UI shift.

I would've paid 5x for a unshittified windows build. WSL is a truly impressive VM for dev work.

But I had to go to Linux and I suspect MicroSuck is in very deep financial shit with LibreOffice and Linux offering far better user experiences.

Windows 11 LTS is a dream to use. Unfortunately I need 25H2 for dumb gaming reasons so I can't use it. It proves Microsoft can make windows properly they just refuse.

When I opened up the old notepad and my add/remove programs was 3 entries long I couldn't believe it.

Meanwhile, this site is covered with ads that are impossible to close

I turned off my ad blocker to check (Firefox mobile) and got zero ads. Hm

Not only that, it blocks access to users with an adblocker enabled.

Business as usual. Just wait until the start-menu icon is a Coca-Cola logo :D

Bro, look at the immersion! My keycaps and fans change color with the commercials! That's attention to detail!

Are people in non-3rd-world countries really using Windows?

You must be quite estranged from daily life to have never encountered a Windows computer in a shop, an office, or at home. Or this is just rage-bait.

Yes, and you know damn well they are. Stop trolling.

There's 11 Fantastic Beasts films?

I think it's 8 Harry Potter and 3 Fantastic Beasts films.

There was a time when I cared about wallpapers but nowadays my PC is just used for videogames.

Anything actually important is done on my smartphone.

No, no, no. Guise. You’ve got it all wrong. Microsoft cares about Windows and its customers again. Don’t trust your lying eyes.

It’s a big initiative and you know Microsoft is always serious about those.

https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/windows-11/what-is-...

I’ve used this for many years on a random windows box, and it’s usually very nice. This is the first time I’ve seen this. And man, give me a fucking break. What’s the argument, Microsoft needs the money? Get a grip guys, it’s ok to do things for goodwill or because it’s cool. Not every last dollar is worth chasing. This is like watching Elon Musk rooting around in a summer festival port a potty for loose change.

Maybe surgeons and dentists should tattoo ads onto bigcorp execs faces unless they spot and correctly fill out the quintuple negated opt out hidden on page 97 of their medical care clickwrap agreements.

Edit: And of course now the playbook: if the backlash is strong enough the mea culpa, then 6 months later kill it out of spite.

Cry me alligator tears.

It's been years since Microsoft has went from OS to advert ridden surveillance OS.

If you have been abused by Microsoft for years, recognize the abusive actions against you, know you have Linux alternatives, and you still choose abuse... Well, this is a YOU problem.

You can choose Linux. Works super well these days. But this is a YOU problem if you keep choosing MS Windows and their ongoing abuse and enshittification.

This and the LG TV spying scandal that's also on the front page really highlight for me how unpleasant, shitty, and invasive tech has become. Yeah, I know you can use Linux, at least for now (I do). But things are moving in a bad direction. It's almost to the point of making me, a lifelong computer dork, want to go outside and touch grass. Unthinkable.

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