Microsoft stoops to new low with ads in Windows 11, as PC Manager tool suggests your system needs ‘repairing’ if you don’t use Bing
2 years ago by dvdnet62 to c/technology
I dualboot to accommodate a handful of apps. Linux loads up fast and awaits my command once logged in. Meanwhile my pretty much fresh windows build sets my cooling fans on full before I’ve even touch the mouse.
I admit it was a bit of a learning curve getting things set up as I like, but man Linux is such a better experience.
You might like a VM for Windows instead, so there's no risk of a windows update taking a hammer to your bootloader
This is one of the reasons I like Qubes a lot.
I didn’t spend tons of time experimenting, but found the VM wasn’t performing as smoothly as a second install.
Should I be worried about the boot loader thing? My OS picking experience is pretty wack. I have to slam esc while booting then f9 then pick my Linux boot up. It defaults to windows which I kind of like because it puts my actual OS on stealth mode lol.
If you're booting without GRUB then you don't need to be concerned about your bootloader breaking. Windows just sometimes overwrites GRUB, which is a pain
There’s something refreshing and simple about the computer doing what you tell it to do and nothing extra.
When you don’t want or need your hand held, there is a simple beauty.
Do you have your fans controlled by the bios or a fan controller?
I was thinking about desktops, where the fan would be physically plugged into a fan controller instead of into the motherboard. Not sure what that would look like with a laptop.
I was mainly asking because some of those fan controllers default to full on when the usb connection is absent, and Windows doesn't enable all usb connections until after the user logs into the system.
I finally did this last week, nuked out my Win 11 laptop install and switched to Ubuntu. I have yet to find anything I would need to go back to Windows for.
I was not so brave. I installed in dual boot, but I just never booted back into windows.
Don't hold your breath, 10 already broke the pattern IMO and all I hear about 12 is that they will cram "AI" into everything. Windows the operating system is dead, replaced by Windows the sales platform.
Idk what I can say about this except "lol"
My reaction too. Next thing they'll have a hand reach out from the monitor and slap you in the face every time you log on. And people will still put up with it.
A lot of people don’t have a choice
Actually, those that don't have a choice aren't affected by the enshittification quite as much. This mainly affects the consumers using Windows Home. And those definitely could try something else.
Technically speaking noone is restricting you from changing your job/school
spoiler
sdfsaf
Who is this Noone guy, and why is he restricting everyone's job and school choices?
Wasn't IBM broken up into different hardware and software companies? Or an I thinking of someone else
Not ibm. You might be thinking of Bell: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/...
Nah that's obvious. There was a major supercomputer company that split up their hardware and software soon after software wasn't strictly for one machine anymore.
Not yet…
This time the software giant is trying out having PC Manager suggest that you 'repair' your system by reverting to Microsoft's default search engine, Bing.
These are sound like things that are just begging European union to milk out some cash from Microsoft through fines.
Or set aside the cash as a neccessary expenditure to greater income.
Turned on my computer yesterday and this popped up. No option to decline. I had to go into the registry last week get all traces of OneDrive out. It's worse than just ads; it's also forcing its other products. Like: Bitch, I'm just here for your OS. Fuck off with all your neediness.
"Let's finish setting up your PC Your PC needs to be backed up and connected to a few more Microsoft services to help you work more easily and securely acrossall your devices.
Back up your files with OneDrive cloud storage Have peace of mind knowing they're backed up and available acrossyour devices
Enhance your web browsing experience Restore Microsoft recommended browser settings.
Achieve more with a Microsoft 365 subscription Get premium Microsoft 365 apps, 1 TB of cloud storage to back up files and photos, and more
Back up your phone to your PC Access your phone's photos, texts, and more, right on your PC.
Sign in quickly with Windows Hello Securely unlock your device with a touch or a smile.
Remind me in 3 days or Continue"
Except that it was totally painless. It just works without an issue. This time it was Garuda, and part after install it ran an assistant where it could install a bunch of other applications for you too. It's incredible how easy the process is compared to Windows.
There's some distributions that are windows-like, if you want that you can try Linux Mint. But some DEs like Gnome approach desktop use very differently and do away with plenty of windows designs.
No KDE or Gnome theme will bring drivers for software and hardware that is only working on Windows, unfortunately.
Ha. You're not wrong.
Windows: System needs repairing Me: proceeds to install linux mint
Here's a tool to permanently fix your windows installation from all this BS.
ᶠᵘˡˡ ᵈᶦˢᶜˡᵒˢᵘʳᵉ ⁻ ᶦᵗ‘ˢ ᵃⁿ ᶦⁿˢᵗᵃˡˡᵃᵗᶦᵒⁿ ᵍᵘᶦᵈᵉ ᵗᵒ ᴸᶦⁿᵘˣ ᴹᶦⁿᵗ
I think today might be the day. I'm tired of every piece of tech's infuriatingly enshittification of things. I wanted to google something normal only for the AI to spout nonhelpful, sponsored links. I'm sick of it ALL!!! I wanna burn silicon valley down and start fresh at this point
Do it, fucking go crazy, let all your weird fucked up dark fantasies out, as both a very chaotic person but also a very thoughtful and caring person, fucking now is the time to do it.
Linux has gotten really good, drivers are good. You can do it and your headaches will be so much less in the end.
Come over to the bright side.
Let your dark fantasies about doing lots of dirty things through the command line or whatever come true. Install a bunch of open source software and don’t even tell your husband.
It is 2024 do whatever the fuck you want, corporations have completely folded their hands and completely quit even playing the game of providing you (not rich person) with functional visions of products or even functional products. Why? I don’t even know honestly, I mean I am definitely a nerd about open source software and a raging socialist but it is truly astonishing how quick enshittification is in this late stage of 2024, it is the continual experience of standing im front of a massive glacier and watching square kilometer chunks calving and collapsing for no apparent logical reason.
They about to find out the only reason people don't use Linux is because Windows is 'convenient.'
So you're saying you, a windows 11 user on five computers running Microsoft's default preferred configuration don't receive any nagware notifications for deviating from Microsoft's preferred configuration? Fascinating
Big corps love A/B testing, slow rollouts and geo-restricted features. You might be in a different group than people that get all these ads.
Are you living in the same country as those that complain about ads in windows? From what I understand, this is not rolled out globally yet.
Lemmy demographic feels like mostly Linux users.
Lemmy posters are on vegan level of promoting Linux, and sith level of hate on Windows.
Join the dark side! We have penguins!
aye, but do you have a way of managing a physical (noy virtual machine) windows computer so it can be used through the linux system without being aware of it?
Like RDP? Or are we talking like, some sort of ssh GUI, where you just wanna access the files on the Windows machine? Most file explorers on Linux do that natively. Or are you talking about compatibility with .exe files? If so, there's Wine and Proton, but those could need some configuration.
Unfortunately, if you're managing one computer from another computer, you're going to be aware of it regardless of which OS you decide to use.
Microsoft always treated linux and foss with such disdain while under Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. Their current CEO is an outlier, openly embracing and extending foss and linux. After years of abuses from Gates and Ballmer, many people in the linux community won't be so quick to trust them.
Same? I'm really confused which ads they're taking about
I just installed Win11 on a work computer last week, and there were at least 3 screens of the installer trying to push o365 or one drive.
Then you have the start menu where if you look for a software, 90% of the menu is an ad trying to push you a software. At the bottom, you have your search results.
And then there is the pop ups on the bottom right of the screen trying to sell you Candy Crush or another bullshit software.
That's awful and I'm glad it wasn't my computer
not sure where all those ads are here unless you mean the search queries on the web??
You must be in the B group or something, do you use a Microsoft account to login with or a local user?
I see the same behavior, both as a local user and as a user connected to a cloud account.
I love how the lemmy FoSS Linux hivemind still down votes you to almost oblivion.
They still haven't figured out this isn't reddit. Shouldn't downvote just because you don't agree with something my dudes...
Replying from Ubuntu (distro of the month for me) though, so I know other. I wouldn't say better, just different
Windows is perfectly fine for day to day use. 80% of my PC use (and probably 99% for like most people I know) is in a browser. The remaining 20% is in video games. My browser works 100% the same in Linux as it does in Windows. Video games overall are easier to use in Windows. (I use Steam (90% fine with Linux) and Gamepass, which does not play well with Linux).
But feel free to continue to complain about windows :)
Windows at this point is barely an OS anymore, it's freemium, it exists solely to push ads and their other products. You say it yourself, most people just use the browser, but hey today windows wants you to use edge, onedrive, outlook, the office suite... and they're taking every step to make sure you do. Their unique goal is to lock you into their ecosystem and make more money off you.
Just turn off "show scores" in your profile and you'll be happier. It's a meaningless number anyway.
They still haven’t figured out this isn’t reddit. Shouldn’t downvote just because you don’t agree with something my dudes…
Well, that's not a feature of reddit after all. People are the same, no matter where they are.
this isn’t reddit.
Correct, hence downvoting here is meaningless.
right? the clickbait is just absurd. and i say this as someone who lived through the whole slashdot "m$" phase where you couldn't blink without seeing an anti microsoft piece on there
I just switched all my systems over to mint. I used to think Linux was the "just at work" environment. But now I'm flipping it. I'm sick of Windows, I know it's less hassle but my digital well-being needs a break from ads.
It is truly the year of the Linux desktop.
I just rolled back my Win 11 to Win 10 only to use temporarily while I test some other distros to see which one(s) I like.
Shout out to Ventoy, my new favorite usb utility.
Truly a "where have you been all my life" moment. It even works with recovery ISOs!
I'll never flash another usb again if I can help it.
I have a 128gb usb c flash drive that I just dropped a ton of distros onto and went to town. So far, EndeaverOS has been my favorite.
Even 10 has annoying popups all the time. And they added AI to the bottom right hand corner where I've accidentally clicked on it twice now.
And that's why I switched to Linux.
Switching to Linux won’t save you if Microsoft Edge takes such a huge market share that a lot of the internet starts to basically require it.
What would that be? Microsoft Edge is a Chromium browser, it can't do more with webpages than Chrome or any other of the bunch can.
Oh and Edge is available for Linux, so there's that. Not that I'd use it...
Microsoft can modify chromium. They can add proprietary things to it. Yes you could use edge if you have to critical pages that only works right on edge.
So wait, let me get this straight, people shouldn't install Linux to avoid windows because they might make edge somehow critical to the use of major websites? Why not just use Linux anyways since that's not happening anytime soon (especially not with the market share Chrome and Firefox have)
Windows is telling people their computer is broken if they don’t use Edge.
Bing, not Edge.
As it stands it’s better than the most popular browser so it’s not impossible
I have to disagree, edge has been a big ol' joke since it's conception, most non tech literate people see it and go, huh, okay time to download chrome.
Most tech literate people don't like it for the myriad of other problems, i can't think of a single scenario where edge dominates the market
Stockholm Syndrome is the only explanation I can come up with at this point.
Stockholm Syndrome
Completely off topic: Stockholm syndrome gets its name from a hostage situation where the police seemed to show no care or concern for the hostages' safety and the captors did more to protect them than law enforcement. Of course the hostages' felt more empathy towards their captors.
According to accounts by Kristin Enmark, one of the hostages, the police were acting incompetently, with little care for the hostages' safety. This forced the hostages to negotiate for their lives and releases with the robbers on their own. In the process, the hostages saw the robbers behaving more rationally than the police negotiators and subsequently developed a deep distrust towards the latter.[9] Enmark had criticized Bejerot specifically for endangering their lives by behaving aggressively and agitating the captors. She had criticized the police for pointing guns at the convicts while the hostages were in the line of fire, and she had told news outlets that one of the captors tried to protect the hostages from being caught in the crossfire.
That's a really interesting bit of nuance that I'd never taken note of! Thanks!
100% true, I should have acknowledged that!
I remember the day when you had to buy Windows separate, and pay full retail. Later, you got a massive discount if you bought the disks with your computer. Then, it came preinstalled. Then, it started to get crappy and more buggy.
I find it funny, actually. For years, I used DOS, exclusively command line-based, on a 286 and when I got a new 486 computer in the early 90s I was so excited to get Windows 3.1 on it. Decades later, I find myself hating Windows and going back to Linux and often a command line. As far as I'm concerned, the closest thing to the last usable version of Windows was 7, and it still kinda sucked.
cd c:\oregontr
start .com
Good times. Good times....
(Edit. Added space in command, so it's not a website)
I’m still salty my current laptop is sold at a discount in the EU without a pre-installed OS due to laws in place--but where I am, I had no choice but to pay a Microsoft tax & immediately wipe it. I used to not connect to WiFi & just look around for a few minutes out of curiosity before wiping, but since 11 moved to Microsoft Account + WiFi required & all the telemetry on by default, I don’t even bother with that anymore.
I use a mixture of Linux and Windows 10 LTSC on my PCs/servers/VMs. I will be the first to admit that Windows does sometimes make sense to use. My desktop PC and my dev environment are both Windows 10.
That being said, what is the advantage in using Windows 11 over 10? As far as I can tell, it's worse in every way. Built-in ads, a crappier UI, forced obsolescence with TPM requirements, and "feature" bloat that nobody asked for.
10 was a clear improvement over 8, but 11 just seems all-around worse.
what is the advantage in using Windows 11 over 10?
Many years ago, I was at a Windows XP launch event and the Microsoft Rep had a really honest line:
"Why should you start using Windows XP? Because we're going to stop supporting Windows 98!"
And ya, that's pretty much been the cattle prod Microsoft uses to push new versions, eventually you stop getting security updates for the older OS and at some point there are enough security vulnerabilities which make it no longer safe for daily use. That said, with Windows becoming more and more user hostile, other options start to make more sense.
I'd like to hope that by the time Win10 is no longer supported, we have Win12 that doesn't suck. The way things are going, though, I doubt it. I'm expecting that Win10 will be the last version of Windows I use.
I still prefer Windows over Linux for gaming and software development, but everyone has their limit. I am strongly opposed to advertisements, and when I can no longer block ads from my operating system, it's dead to me.
I never upgraded software-wise. Moreso my tech got so outdated that new hardware I'd get (I only use Windows for gaming) would have the latest Windows installed - exactly what Microsoft wants.
I think Proton/Linux in the past year is going to really disrupt that strategy.
That being said, what is the advantage in using Windows 11 over 10?
Windows 11 re-introduced Clippy as an emoji:
Holy shit, really?
My change controls written in comic sans are going to a new level!
Damn I'm somewhat indifferent to windows as my main PC os, mostly because I've got all my weird music hardware and a couple of decades worth of plugins working nicely. But this shit is getting annoying, so...
I have extensive experience with Linux on servers and I keep umming and ahhing about switching to it as my main desktop OS—let's see if anyone here is in the venn diagram that can answer this:
I'm a software engineer, all of that is cool, but I'm also pretty into music production
I would need to run Ableton with a Push 3 and Maschine with my M+. I've got simpler controllers like a beatstep pro, but I'm expecting those to be fine. And then would I be able to use my expert sleepers modular interfaces properly? Obviously I want this all with low latency.
After hardware I've got all sorts of vsts across tens of companies, some need my ilok key, I've got my Steinberg stuff too, but they've moved to online licensing finally.
Alternatives to the software are great (I know I can use bitwig natively, for example), but it's a non starter unless I can run it all, I've got years of projects that I would want to be able to open and start messing with the music, rather than spending most of my time messing with the software and losing what inspiration made me open the software in the first place
From someone with experience in this area, how viable is this?
Steinberg plugins are not working at all for me. I have Absolute 4 and Cubase Artist 12.
The licensing app installs fine. However, the download center cannot be installed. If you download the installers directly from Steinberg, those don't install.
I did have some luck with downloading Steinberg installers on a windows pc with download assistant, and then opening THOSE installers on Linux. They installed correctly this way and Yabridge (vst bridge for Linux) even identified them correctly. But the vsts would crash on start.
Yabridge is essential to using VSTs on Linux. Works great from my experience, IF the vst actually can start at all. But that is never a Yabridge problem, always a VST specific Wine problem.
Arturia stuff can be installed without any problems (through wine)
Spitfire's recent update broke things.
From what I've seen, Ableton is pretty nicely supported by the Wine community. But any Ableton or Wine update can break things, so you'll need to have Wine and Ableton updates freezed if you want a hasslefree life.
Hardware stuff I had no problems with for now, but I have mostly simple midi controllers. I have an external soundcard (UR22 mk2), so my latency is as low on Windows. I use Pipewire, because PulseAudio seems to sometimes give problems being detected by VSTs.
For now I cannot recommend anyone that has extensive VST libraries to fully commit to Linux. The support is simply not there yet. Wine is not reliable enough, and I would hate to be stopped by a Wine error when inspiration hits. You'll be troubleshooting for days to hopefully get your favourite VSTs working, and pray they don't break when they update.
I dual boot for now. Music and VR on Windows, all other tasks on Linux. I'm considering making stems for all my projects so I could switch to a different DAW with only Arturia plugins in the future. But I'm not ready yet.
I'm not a super expert, but I did try very hard to get my steinberg stuff and Spitfire Labs working. Feel free to ask any followup questions.
Firstly, thanks for the detailed response!
It's promising to hear that Ableton has a lot of support from the community. I suppose given the versioning issues something like nix could be used to manage the wine versioning more deliberately.
I've got a focusrite interface, so if your latency is low, I imagine I'd probably get the same experience. I know I'll probably lose the iPad remote control features too as I think that's baked into the windows driver.
Given I do have a pretty extensive VST collection, it's a shame, but you're probably right. Do you know how heavily developed Yabridge is? Do you think the industry moving slowly to CLAP plugins might improve this situation?
Maybe dual-boot is a better option to start with, I guess that way if I feel like trying to get it working I can give it a go.
Do you have any plugins that use iLok? Either software or a hardware key
No problem!
-Yabridge is still actively being developped. The developer responds to issues on it's Github frequently.
-Ableton 11.x currently has gold status on WineDB. other versions have varying ratings bronze to platinum.
-I don't use iLok plugins a lot, but I just tried installing one. iLok gave an error for me. Some searching gave me a thread about a user that got a specific iLok version to work though, so you may need to experiment with this yourself: This thread
I don't know much about CLAP since I always used VSTs (Cubase user after all :P ). I hope more developers will implement it as an alternative, but I don't have high hopes. .Au could only become a standard because of Apple's willingness to not support VSTs in Logic. I'm not sure if a third-party format can shift that much weight. All DAWS either support VST, AU or AAX and I don't think developers want ANOTHER format to maintain.
I am in a very similar position. Ableton and some other, smaller stuff is the only program that keeps me from switching to Linux fulltime. Bitwig did not click for me yet, I have to give it a try again soon. But the problem of unopenable projects persist. There are roumors, that the push 3 standalone runs a Linux port of ableton. So maaaybe there will be a Linux version in the future? That would be wild! Until then I just dualboot. I will soon reinstall my windows partition for ableton only.. I am pretty shure if bigger companies would start supporting Linux, it would take off like crazy
I'd say keep that machine as is, and whenever you build a new one, just put whichever distro you like. If possible I'd roll back to win10 and after support ends, keep that machine VLAN'd off the internet. This way you turn it into a music production appliance without disrupting your workflow
Please microsoft, become the ad platform you're destined to become and give users a reason to move to linux.
This is the one thing that justfied buying an enterprise licensing model for my C level overlords.
these clickbait anti microsoft ads weren't amusing in the late 90s on slashdot and they aren't amusing now.
What is a slashdot?
my sarcasm meter is broken so i hope this is sarcasm but if not oh you sweet summer child
Slashdot was founded 26 years ago. I'm almost 40, so when I say this, I mean it-
Don't condescend to young people about being children. You're just old now. Embrace it. Explain things nicely or be one of those old people we hated when we were young.
Well, windows xp is older than I am
I'm in the US and I've not seen any of it either.
Windows 11 kinda sucks, I don't know why it's so hard for them to design a consistent UI, but I've not seen this ad nonsense.
I am using adguard DNS across my network, so maybe that's why?
Isn't this exactly what got them broken up last time?
Yeah, but back then you Americans had a government. I can't see it happening with your current circus.
The EU, however, is already looking at MS over teams monopoly practises (fucking finally!), I'm hoping edge and copilot/bing are on their radar too!
I fought with Broadcom's shitty website for hours, but finally have Workstation Pro, in which I will test my workflows in Linux.
Games and Lightroom will be a challenge, but I'm going to avoid Win11 at all costs.
Lol, I don't even use Windows... heh !!!
Imagine you have a computer that’s been compromised by malware. What do you think the search engine will be set to? Not Google, not Bing, probably some third party one that has ads and malware. Changing that to Bing would technically qualify as a repair.
They could easily improve this by just adding a list of common reputable search engines, and adding those to an allow list.
As a Linux aficionado, I appreciate you trying to bring an argument for Windows in good faith and a potential way for Microsoft to improve it. This is even if steering people to Bing is Microsoft's intention with this move so they are unlikely to improve it in the way you suggested.
Since forever, Microsoft-affiliated products are often the only things that get the "trusted" label within the Microsoft ecosystem.
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@lemmy.ml
This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.
Ask in DM before posting product reviews or ads. All such posts otherwise are subject to removal.
Rules:
1: All Lemmy rules apply
2: Do not post low effort posts
3: NEVER post naziped*gore stuff
4: Always post article URLs or their archived version URLs as sources, NOT screenshots. Help the blind users.
5: personal rants of Big Tech CEOs like Elon Musk are unwelcome (does not include posts about their companies affecting wide range of people)
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