[HN Gopher] Windows 11 KB5023778 update adds promotions to the S...
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Windows 11 KB5023778 update adds promotions to the Start menu
Author : nazgulsenpai
Score : 82 points
Date : 2023-03-28 19:00 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bleepingcomputer.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bleepingcomputer.com)
| eugenekolo wrote:
| I feel like I'm on crazy pills when I complain about these things
| and all the other intrusions Windows pops up at me every time I
| use the operating system... Yet, the people who use it (mostly
| gamers), seem to think it's all fine and the operating system is
| great.
| artursapek wrote:
| most people just accepts ads as a part of life
| klodolph wrote:
| If you're a gamer, how do you interact with the computer?
|
| You launch Steam, see a bunch of ads, launch Epic Game Store or
| GOG Galaxy and see a bunch of ads, so why wouldn't you see ads
| in the start menu?
|
| Hell, you have to log in to an account for the "GeForce
| Experience". Just to keep your graphics card drivers
| automatically updated.
|
| As soon as you're in a game, the game is full-screen. You're
| not switching apps, you're not creating anything, you're just
| consuming content, and ads are a part of how we consume content
| these days.
| troymc wrote:
| It would be nice if there was a univesal ad blocker that
| worked _everywhere_...
| JohnFen wrote:
| > ads are a part of how we consume content these days.
|
| They aren't a part of how I do it.
| RajT88 wrote:
| > Just to keep your graphics card drivers automatically
| updated.
|
| Auto-updaters are a bane unto themselves of annoying crap
| running in the background.
|
| As are "quicklaunch" agents, or anything which claims to be
| some sort of "agent" to improve the user experience of their
| software.
|
| Most of it delivers very little value, and who knows what the
| hell data it is hoovering up.
| Minor49er wrote:
| You're right. Everyone keeps whining "privacy and usability"
| this and "I already paid for the OS" that. To them, I say:
| shut up! Don't these people know that computers are only
| about consuming content? We should be advocating for an even
| greater ad-filled future for everyone to enjoy
|
| Why aren't we seeing ads in context menus? Why can't I yell
| "Burger King" into my mic every 10 minutes while streaming to
| get access to higher bitrates? Why hasn't Microsoft put ads
| on the BSOD? Why am I not paying a microtransaction every
| time I start up my computer to get it to skip an ad and boot
| faster? We are still missing out on some serious advertising
| potential! Every eyeball that isn't looking at a corporate
| logo is selfishly wasting time
| Anarch157a wrote:
| Steam, EGS and GOG are stores. Ads are expected in stores.
| The OS that runs my computer is not.
|
| I would expect ads on Windows when I open the built-in app
| store, but not on the Start Menu.
| nightski wrote:
| Personally I never see these ads on Windows even though I
| think they sound terrible. I must just have the right group
| policy settings or something.
| kderbe wrote:
| > you have to log in to an account for the "GeForce
| Experience". Just to keep your graphics card drivers
| automatically updated.
|
| TechPowerUp's NVCleanstall makes it easy to automatically
| update Nvidia drivers without any login, and also to remove
| any Nvidia application bloat you don't want. (I exclude GFE
| and only install the control panel, for example.)
| jmuguy wrote:
| I only use Windows for games, and I don't think its fine, which
| is why I only use it for games. And its like another commenter
| said - you also have to deal with Nvidia's trash application,
| all the game stores, Discord (which I swear has more bullshit
| popups pushing whatever monetization every time it updates). I
| just try to ignore all that crap as much as possible. Any time
| I'm forced to do something more than cut over to the PC on my
| KVM and launch the game I want to play, I cringe.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I use Windows and largely my computer usage these days is
| gaming and some related activities, and things are most
| definitely not fine and I don't know of anyone else who thinks
| they are.
|
| What they are, is basically all we have. Thanks mostly to WINE
| and Valve, Linux gaming is now almost completely tolerable, but
| it certainly isn't perfect and there are huge gaps in
| capability (VR, for one). So as much as we hate what Windows
| has become we are unable to switch to it without making some
| pretty big sacrifices.
|
| Instead we use LTSC editions, O&O ShutUp 10, and some other
| third party utilities to mitigate the bullshit.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Lack of VR on Linux is why my custom tower spends most of its
| powered-on time booted into Windows at this point. I play
| Beat Saber custom maps for exercise and that's not easy to
| replace.
| kulahan wrote:
| I have no real idea what the issue with Windows is. It
| certainly has drawbacks, but... so does every OS. I hit power,
| my computer boots up in 10 seconds or so, I launch a game, and
| I'm ready to go. I think Windows puts ads in the little
| notification center, but I turned that off ages ago. It seems
| fine to me.
| neogodless wrote:
| > Yet, the people who use it (mostly gamers), seem to think
| it's all fine and the operating system is great.
|
| A lot of assumptions in such a short sentence. I suspect
| there's more than a complex set of opinions around Windows,
| Windows 10, Windows 11, using Windows for gaming, thinking it's
| all fine, thinking lots of things suck, thinking it is a great
| operating system, thinking it's a shame it does things outside
| of the ideal scope of an operating system.
|
| Anecdotally, _most of the time_ I don 't see the annoying
| things on my primary Windows 10 Professional machine. Upon a
| clean install, there were some nuisances that needed cleaned
| up. But the vast majority of the time, it is customizable as I
| desire, while being rock solid / stable, rarely needing reboots
| to apply updates, and when I go to play games, they just work,
| and they run super well.
|
| I still hate those nuisances, and I hate that a reboot risks a
| dark pattern trying to push Windows 11. I hate Windows 11. It
| currently holds exactly zero advantages (for me) over Windows
| 10, and lots of disadvantages.
|
| I really like Linux Mint, but I gave it a solid 2 months on my
| primary gaming machine (which happens to be a laptop) and it
| fell short in a few key areas. It has a lot of warts, and some
| games were unstable, performed poorly, or wouldn't connect to
| multiplayer. I also had no control over the brightness of my
| screen while using my discrete GPU. For the purposes of gaming,
| Windows 10 is vastly superior for the set of games I play. And
| it's a shame, because I do really like the Linux Mint
| experience for most things, including _most games_ , but the
| issues are more problematic than the _ongoing_ issues that I
| have with Windows 10.
| nightski wrote:
| Actually I am very frustrated by the advantages it does have,
| because I want to stay on 10 badly. But there are two nice
| ones -
|
| - WiFi 6(e) 6Ghz band support is only in Win 11
|
| - Direct GPU access from WSL2 for things like CUDA/ML
| programming is Win 11 only
| neogodless wrote:
| Sorry - I meant to say "advantages _for me_ " specifically!
| yamtaddle wrote:
| > Yet, the people who use it (mostly gamers), seem to think
| it's all fine and the operating system is great.
|
| I hate Windows these days, but the specific AMD video card in
| my gaming desktop has buggy drivers in Linux and reliably
| crashes the whole machine about once every four hours (or, much
| faster if I actually play a game on it--that's if I'm just web
| browsing and hanging out in terminals and such) versus my
| having had zero OS-level crashes on the same hardware over
| almost three years under Windows 10. So... Windows it is.
|
| IDK, the driver may be fixed now, but the bug had been
| outstanding for 18+ months when I encountered it, so, I
| wouldn't bet on it. It seemed to have very little traction. And
| at this point it's really not worth my time to try, since the
| machine's working OK as-is, aside from Windows being crap.
|
| Since all I do on Windows is game, having to avoid some ads
| isn't _that_ big a deal. I spend nearly all my time on it in
| fullscreen programs anyway, hardly interacting with Windows at
| all.
|
| So it's "great" in that it actually works correctly on my
| hardware, and ~all my games work just as they should. It's shit
| in every other way, but if it's effectively just a game
| launcher, oh well. I do anything important on other operating
| systems.
| krzrak wrote:
| That's weird, I have Windows 11 installed by the computer
| manufacturer but I don't recall having any ads. Is that because I
| disabled them at the start? (don't remember) or maybe because I
| have pihole in my network? Anyway - no ads for me.
| Apreche wrote:
| On the fresh install of Windows I do see some ads and ad-adjacent
| things. But once I disable all of them, that's it. No more. I
| haven't seen anything at all like this since install day a couple
| years back.
|
| My guess is that people aren't going through and disabling
| everything. Also, people aren't using piholes which are probably
| blocking everything that can't be disabled.
| ashwagary wrote:
| >On the fresh install of Windows I do see some ads and ad-
| adjacent things.
|
| I'm curious, did you pay for the installer or did it come
| bundled with a device?
| pkulak wrote:
| Yes, it is the user who is wrong. :D
| IceHegel wrote:
| The fact that Microsoft is the 2nd largest company in the world
| and enjoys a _very_ close relationship with the Federal
| Government makes it even worse. Very cyberpunk, very dystopian.
|
| Overall, this kind of thing makes the species worse off.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Its funny how rampant greed does that and yet we've all just
| kinda decided its the best possible way to run a society.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > we've all just kinda decided
|
| "we've all" kind of masks the way those who benefit the most
| from that decision are disproportionately influential it
| making it, both initially and on an ongoing basis,
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Sure, but I mean, spend some time around HN and you'll find
| plenty of people defending hypercapitalism as obviously the
| best way for things to be.
|
| Hell, not long ago I had someone challenge me on whether or
| not exploiting people for profit, in particular in health
| care, was wrong or not.
| twawaaay wrote:
| It is death of an operating system. Before our eyes. Microsoft is
| trying desperately to squeeze a bit more cash out of it but the
| failing culture within Microsoft is unable to recognise they are
| driving users off their own product.
|
| I already got fed up enough that I basically banned Windows at
| home and I am impatiently waiting to kill one last Windows box.
| It is our gaming machine that is generally available to entire
| household of 5 (3 adults and two kids). All other machines are
| either Windows laptops converted to Linux or new Macbooks and it
| seems we will only have more MacOS now that Apple got a bit more
| sane with their hardware choices.
|
| I may leave one Windows instance running in Proxmox just in case
| if somebody needs it.
| twosdai wrote:
| I've been gaming on pop os for a little while now. It's pretty
| good honestly. I would give it a shot.
| pianoben wrote:
| For what it's worth, a _ton_ of people inside of MSFT are
| opposed to these changes. The few responsible for them are
| answering to overwhelming pressure from the Finance side.
|
| Every time something like this ships out, guaranteed just about
| every CVP fields angry/annoyed/exasperated complaints about it.
| capableweb wrote:
| Great, I just updated to Windows 11 in hope of getting WSL2 +
| Arch Linux + CUDA + Docker but it didn't pan out in the end, had
| to move back to proper Linux for that piece of work. But seems
| I'm stuck with Windows 11 now and additionally, the running
| applications that show up in the taskbar suddenly can only show
| icons, no text allowed.
|
| I started to regret my decision to upgrade, and this just adds
| insult to injury.
| btgeekboy wrote:
| Didn't applications used to be able to show their titles in the
| taskbar under W11 if you change the taskbar settings? Did that
| go away, or am I imagining that ability?
| bakugo wrote:
| I use 11 Enterprise and don't have to deal with most of these
| annoyances thankfully, I don't know if I'd be able to tolerate it
| if I did.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| Every couple of weeks Windows shows a FULL SCREEN advertisement
| during boot/login which requires several clicks to get rid of.
| They advertise everything starting from Microsoft Accounts,
| OneDrive, MS Edge (
| https://www.windowslatest.com/2020/11/15/windows-10-is-now-n... )
| , Windows 11 ( https://mspoweruser.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2022/12/167013949... ) , and a long etc.
|
| This is not a small advert in a small corner of the start menu.
| These are full-screen adverts that interrupt your use of the
| computer until you click.
|
| What on Earth could they possibly do now to top that ?
| metalliqaz wrote:
| Strange, I have never seen those ads. Are they restricted to
| the Home editions? I use Enterprise.
| grujicd wrote:
| It's on Professional as well.
| rolph wrote:
| start making them into onboarding installs is one think off the
| top of my head.
| otikik wrote:
| Each one of those ads is a free ad for Apple and Linux. "If you
| had Apple, you wouldn't have to endure this!"
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Each one of those ads is a free ad for Apple and Linux. "If
| you had Apple, you wouldn't have to endure this!"_
|
| In an ideal world, it would push people toward real life.
|
| "Another ad on my computer? I don't need to Candy Crush that
| bad. I'll go outside."
| smnrchrds wrote:
| I wish Apple was actually good in that regard. I ended up
| uninstalled Apple Stocks app from my Mac and iPhone because
| of all the terrible ads. The ads I was were even worse than
| this:
|
| https://images.app.goo.gl/dVbDoBuScVzp3uAg9
| latsnoopy wrote:
| wtf, i have never seen any add in ios including stock app
| pivo wrote:
| I think that's in the Apple News "Business News" section
| at the bottom. I'd never noticed it before myself.
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| I saw this coming a few months ago and had the same reaction.
|
| I was already in the market for a new PC. I'm just finalizing
| what version of Linux I want to run for my dev work and then
| I'm going to offload my Adobe work onto a Mac Mini and
| finally get rid of Windows once and for all.
| mostlysimilar wrote:
| It also infuriates me that they won't let you actually say no.
| It's always "remind me later" or "skip for now" or "try again
| in 3 days".
|
| What has gotten into the minds of these people? Why do they
| think this is at all acceptable?
| DANmode wrote:
| > Why do they think this is at all acceptable?
|
| You're still a Windows user, aren't you? (No judgement, just
| answering the question!)
| nikanj wrote:
| Their incentives are off. They get a bonus for implementing
| customer-hostile features, and don't lose anything if the
| users hate it.
| max51 wrote:
| >What on Earth could they possibly do now to top that ?
|
| Autoplaying videos with sound
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| That auto pause if your eyes look away.
| ChickenNugger wrote:
| DRINK VERIFICATION CAN
| max51 wrote:
| with VR/AR, there is no place to look away ;)
| omoikane wrote:
| Related: https://xkcd.com/1305/
| soraminazuki wrote:
| For me, it was worse. It happened every time I booted Windows
| because I only used it occasionally to play games.
|
| After I select Windows in the boot menu, I'd spend like ten
| minutes waiting for Windows Update to complete. Then I have to
| click through a series of full screen ads and prompts to
| disable my privacy settings, which is getting increasingly
| difficult with all the dark patterns thrown in after every new
| release. It really shows a lack of respect for the user, taking
| my computer hostage while I resist their attempts to enable
| numerous privacy-invading settings that I declined over and
| over and over.
|
| Over the years, this made me distrust Windows so much that I
| removed anything critical off of it. I removed my password
| manager, deleted my browsing data, and made sure to remove
| anything tied to an online account except Steam.
|
| Then I finally had enough and moved my games over to Linux. So
| far, the experience is good and I'm glad that WINE is going
| through active improvements.
| howard941 wrote:
| This also happens to a machine that's left on overnight.
| Something Happens and it reboots - I lose my RDP connection -
| to this awful dialog.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| If a third party remotely administered something like this it
| would probably be labeled a "botnet". No doubt the amount of data
| that Microsoft exfiltrates about Windows users is no less than
| any "botnet" would. Customers have about as much control over
| what Microsoft decides it wants to do as they do over an pseudo-
| anonymous botnet. As an original Windows 3.11 user (LAN-only, no
| internet), it's amazing to see how far we have come. Computer
| owners born into this new world of always-on, uncontrollable
| remote administration would have little reason to know any
| different. (HN readers or similar being an exception.)
| jjice wrote:
| Don't they still charge a $100+ license for Windows? I have
| Windows 10 for games, but I haven't booted into it in months
| since Steam has been fantastic on Linux (relative to it's past,
| it has some ways to go).
|
| I'll be the classic Linux desktop optimist: the improvements over
| the last four years along have been fantastic and I really hope
| for a future when it can meet everyone's needs.
|
| My OS shouldn't advertise to me. It shouldn't sell my data, or
| shouldn't do anything like that. It especially shouldn't harass
| me to log into the owning company's account. I shouldn't need any
| internet account to just use the OS (missing features relates the
| said account is obviously reasonable).
| whalesalad wrote:
| They do and it is absurd. I bought Win11 Pro from here for
| about $20, the price has since gone up a bit: https://www.vip-
| urcdkey.com/key/microsoft-windows-11-pro-oem...
| michaelmrose wrote:
| This does not look at all legitimate
| whalesalad wrote:
| I've purchased a handful of keys over the years. It's
| legit.
| kube-system wrote:
| They're OEM keys which are against EULA to use in this
| way. It might work now, but they could ban those keys
| later if they want to.
| grujicd wrote:
| Professional is more like $200, and has all that crap as home
| version.
| ashwagary wrote:
| >It shouldn't sell my data, or shouldn't do anything like that.
| It especially shouldn't harass me to log into the owning
| company's account
|
| Consumers didn't react harshly enough after the prism leaks.
| Microsoft has gotten the inch and is taking a mile.
| uni_baconcat wrote:
| I guess the trend that Microsoft put more adverts in Windows is
| unstoppable.
| nice_byte wrote:
| from the title, I thought these would be ads for third-party
| products. it actually is just prodding to install/use ms's own
| stuff, so it's a nothingburger.
| tonymet wrote:
| anyone know the option to turn this off? yesterday's post on
| disabling news / entertainment content was great.
| jdlyga wrote:
| Windows 11 has already lost the marketing battle. They should
| have kept the version number at 10 and gone with a "ui refresh"
| update. People aren't going to switch until Windows 12 is
| released.
| samhuk wrote:
| They will likely just discontinue Windows 10 to force everybody
| onto 11 in good time; like they tried to do with Windows 7.
|
| I'm on Windows 10 at the moment and no way am I upgrading. From
| what I've seen and heard so far, 11 is an absolute festering
| nightmare.
| grujicd wrote:
| Windows 10 support ends on October 2025, as of things stand
| now.
| MattPalmer1086 wrote:
| And that's fine with me. The only reason I keep windows
| around is because I use VSTs in digital audio software. I
| don't need to connect it to the internet so there's no
| security issues.
|
| In maybe 5 years I will have to think about what I do with
| it all...
| phone8675309 wrote:
| Don't they already do this with some games and services in
| Windows 10? Is this just a supercharged version of what happens
| in Windows 10?
|
| Definitely guarantees that the fTPM stays off on all of my
| machines so they can't be force upgraded.
| tyingq wrote:
| I think the new part is putting them on the start menu versus
| things like a widget bar or dedicated notifications area that
| you can easily totally ignore or turn off.
|
| It's dumping clutter into things like "shut down" where you
| aren't expecting clutter.
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