Windows 10 desktop/taskbar pop-up ads?!

S

Spartacus

2[H]4U
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Apr 29, 2005
Messages
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WTF?!

I run Win-7 Pro on my main computer but I have another computer running Win-10 Pro I use for different projects and testing various things.

I was just doing something on the Win-10 system and I got a pop-up ad tied to the Edge icon on the taskbar offering
"Earn Free Movies & Games while you browse!". It also made this a new item in the Action Center.

Why does Microsoft think it's ok to try to turn my computer into a television and bother me with advertising?

I wasn't even browsing a website, I don't want to see their stupid fucking ads on my desktop!
I'm not amused at all.

Is there a way to disable that shit that won't just get turned on again or break something else?

.
 
I too run windows 10 pro and have yet to get an ad that pops up like that. Computer infected maybe? You install something that in turn installed something else?
 
Win 10 Pro user also, never seen any ads pop up from Windows. I did get ads pop up from a music app I downloaded from the MS store. A paid app with a free stripped down version. Ads were nags to upgrade the ap as well as for other apps the compsny sells. Once i uninstalled the app no more pop ups.
 
Nope no spyware or virus infections.

Like I said it also set a notification in the Action Center. I clicked that item and it directs me to a Bing/Edge promo page:

http://www.bing.com/explore/rewards...002A&wt.mc_id=MY002A&PUBL=WIN10IP&CREA=MY002A

Looks like Windows 10 built-in adware to me.

I don't like the Action Center notification, but what really boiled my blood is the pop-up
ad like a cartoon caption attached to the Edge icon in the Taskbar.

There should not be any advertising in the OS interrupting what I'm doing on the system.

I removed the Edge icon from the taskbar (don't use it anyway), we'll see if it happens again.

.
 
I've had MS trying to force Edge down my throat via a pop up similar to the one you're talking about, via Google search when using Edge simply to download Chrome on a fresh Windows install and when you change your default browser from Edge to something else in the settings panel.

As I've stated in the past, Windows 10 is an OS with an agenda - And here I was stupidly thinking that an OS should just run quietly in the background.
 
Every time I try to give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt and try to come up with positives for Windows 10 something like this happens and makes me glad I switched to Linux.
 
The closest thing I have ever saw to this is you can get links on your Start Menu for applications in the Store. It's a feature that you can turn off. I've never see it pop up from icons, but I do not use Edge so I don't have the icon pinned to Taskbar.
 
bigdogchris said:
The closest thing I have ever saw to this is you can get links on your Start Menu for applications in the Store. It's a feature that you can turn off. I've never see it pop up from icons, but I do not use Edge so I don't have the icon pinned to Taskbar.
Click to expand...

The pop up appears when you don't use Edge, MS doesn't approve and does everything possible to convince you to use their bundled browser. I've only ever had it pop up once, mind you I turn my Windows PC on probably twice a month. While running edge do a bing search for Chrome and see what comes up in your search results. Furthermore, go to Settings > System > Default Apps and change your default browser from Edge to Chrome and experience Microsoft's cheek first hand as they try to convince the unknowledgable to stick with their own bundled browser...
 
DeathFromBelow said:
People, stop using 10 and demand better from Microsoft. It's the only way things are going to get fixed.
Click to expand...

They literally can't, Microsoft has ensured that they're trapped in the ecosystem.

It's a very real addiction, they'll use any excuse to justify it.
 
BulletDust said:
It's a very real addiction, they'll use any excuse to justify it.
Click to expand...

It's kinda hard for the majority to just stop using Windows (any version) considering that 95% of the planet uses it as their personal computer operating system (statistics be damned), compatibility with operational applications and program support does play a key factor in all this.

While I personally will never use Windows 10 as my primary OS and I rarely touch it at all to be honest, it's costing me a lot of money as well because I refuse to support it for clients nor provide technical support for those that do choose to use it either, Windows is the defacto standard personal computer operating system for the masses (which includes both consumers and businesses) so it's not going anywhere anytime soon if ever.
 
Tiberian said:
It's kinda hard for the majority to just stop using Windows (any version) considering that 95% of the planet uses it as their personal computer operating system (statistics be damned), compatibility with operational applications and program support does play a key factor in all this.

While I personally will never use Windows 10 as my primary OS and I rarely touch it at all to be honest, it's costing me a lot of money as well because I refuse to support it for clients nor provide technical support for those that do choose to use it either, Windows is the defacto standard personal computer operating system for the masses (which includes both consumers and businesses) so it's not going anywhere anytime soon if ever.
Click to expand...

Totally agreed. Like I said, Microsoft has made their operating system the defacto standard and ensured the masses are trapped in their eco system. In most cases change is possible, PC gamers are a minority, most of the time people stick with Windows due to either outright laziness or ignorance to learning an alternate way of doing things.
 
Well, people are fucking stupid in general so, thanks for pointing out they're lazy and ignorant too (as if those of us that aren't that lazy or ignorant didn't already know). :D

And just for the record: alternatives have a place, but it doesn't necessarily mean alternatives are better in most situations - and it's that "most situations" that bears all the importance because compatibility and ease of use are what people look for more often than not in a given situation, obviously that would include operating a personal computer as well.

But since this thread is about a different topic altogether, I'll leave my position as just stated and that'll be that for me.

</off_topic>
 
BulletDust said:
Totally agreed. Like I said, Microsoft has made their operating system the defacto standard and ensured the masses are trapped in their eco system. In most cases change is possible, PC gamers are a minority, most of the time people stick with Windows due to either outright laziness or ignorance to learning an alternate way of doing things.
Click to expand...

And this is the problem with many Linux proponents. The average computing device user doesn't care about the OS on that device, they care about what they can do with that device. If the device works well enough for their needs then what motive is their to spend time on pursuing Linux. Windows isn't perfect and neither is Linux. For many folks, moving from Windows to Linux would only trade one set of problems for another with little to no benefit.

If desktop Linux had clear and consistent advantages over Windows across the board we'd all be using it now. It's not a simply matter of being a Windows clone, it's a matter of being clearly superior to Windows in every important way. It's not good enough to say Linux is great but then here's all of the stuff that might be problematic but it shouldn't be a problem because those are minority use cases.
 
There has been a way to disable this from day one. However, I think I will just let you google it and figure it out for yourself.
 
ManofGod said:
There has been a way to disable this from day one. However, I think I will just let you google it and figure it out for yourself.
Click to expand...

Settings->Notifications & actions->Get tips, tricks, and suggestions as you use Windows I believe is the setting. I have it on and I've never seen this particular ad though I've seen other "suggestions" for Edge elsewhere. It's not been particularly common. Some are saying however this setting isn't being honored but who knows.

I get that Windows 10 has it's faults but a great deal of this stuff I just don't see. And I'm not saying what others report isn't the case. And when it comes to Windows 10 one will get criticized for saying "Hey, I don't have that problem or never saw this." But on the flip side, if you are having an issue and 99% of people don't or don't notice, well there's that. 10 isn't perfect but personally it's running as well on a lot of different kinds of hardware for me personally as any version of Windows I've ever used. The only problem at the moment that's a pisser is that on my Surface Book after 4 or so days after a reboot, DRM streaming content from certain sources won't play until after a restart. I have no idea what's up with that. And it doesn't happen on any other Windows 10 device I'm using.
 
BulletDust said:
They literally can't, Microsoft has ensured that they're trapped in the ecosystem.

It's a very real addiction, they'll use any excuse to justify it.
Click to expand...

Pretty much all home desktop users can easily avoid it with no real loss in features or functionality simply by sticking with 7 or 8 (other than Windows Update being a broken mess). I'd argue that 7 is actually a superior user experience anyway.

I used to be a Microsoft fan. You're talking to the guy who stood up for Vista. I now have one legacy Windows 7 machine left for games, everything else is running Linux Mint. If you'd told me this would happen a year or two ago I'd have written you off as a weirdo Linux zealot.
 
heatlesssun said:
And this is the problem with many Linux proponents. The average computing device user doesn't care about the OS on that device, they care about what they can do with that device. If the device works well enough for their needs then what motive is their to spend time on pursuing Linux. Windows isn't perfect and neither is Linux. For many folks, moving from Windows to Linux would only trade one set of problems for another with little to no benefit.
Click to expand...

There would be a benefit, you'd be running an OS that you own that doesn't have a hidden agenda. As I stated, if MS wants my information than they can either pay me for it or give me the OS for free now and into the future. People carry on about how Google exploit the consumer for their data, and they do, but I can get an AOSP version of Android for free and use it on my device no problem. There shouldn't be the need to disable advertising pop up's that are built into a desktop OS as they shouldn't be there in the first place.

Most people don't use their PC for gaming, most people don't need Office and most people, with the exception of professional users, don't need Photoshop.

I used to be a Microsoft fan. You're talking to the guy who stood up for Vista. I now have one legacy Windows 7 machine left for games, everything else is running Linux Mint. If you'd told me this would happen a year or two ago I'd have written you off as a weirdo Linux zealot.
Click to expand...

While everyone bagged it out, I never had an issue with Windows Me that wasn't already present in Windows 98.
 
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BulletDust said:
There would be a benefit, you'd be running an OS that you own that doesn't have a hidden agenda. As I stated, if MS wants my information than they can either pay me for it or give me the OS for free now and into the future. People carry on about how Google exploit the consumer for their data, and they do, but I can get an AOSP version of Android for free and use it on my device no problem. There shouldn't be the need to disable advertising pop up's that are built into a desktop OS as they shouldn't be there in the first place.

Most people don't use their PC for gaming, most people don't need Office and most people, with the exception of professional users, don't need Photoshop.
Click to expand...

There's no hidden agenda with Windows. Like any commercial product the point is to make money. The agenda of desktop Linux I would say is much less clear. Why would you get something like free desktop Linux for absolutely nothing? World peace? The betterment of the human race? In the cynical world we live in many people would much more readily except the greedy devil they understand over the ultraistic angel giving away free stuff with no way ever to profit from it.

As for Microsoft, Google or anyone else wanting your information, it's more complicated than that. That information is used to fuel features. Funny thing, Hadoop, a Java based framework that runs on Linux, is probably used by every major company that people think is stealing their data because it's one of the most power data collection systems in existence right now. I'm not saying that all of this stuff is right or anything like that, but it's sort of inevitable. The more powerful we make devices, the more data they can store, the faster than can leverage that data, it simply become part of computing, how it's used and what it can do. Whatever one wants to think about the cloud and data collection and analytics there's tremendous power in there. It's not going away and Linux systems are at the core of this stuff.

What most interesting about that last sentence, there are people that go on about how important Windows Media Center is or how incredible tons of UI customization is. But playing games or using Office and other productivity tools, not that important because more people don't need of use them. Until they do.
 
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heatlesssun said:
There's no hidden agenda with Windows. Like any commercial product the point is to make money. The agenda of desktop Linux I would say is much less clear. Why would you get something like free desktop Linux for absolutely nothing? World peace? The betterment of the human race? In the cynical world we live in many people would much more readily except the greedy devil they understand over the ultraistic angel giving away free stuff with no way ever to profit from it.

As for Microsoft, Google or anyone else wanting your information, it's more complicated than that. That information is used to fuel features. Funny thing, Hadoop, a Java based framework that runs on Linux, is probably used by every major company that people think is stealing their data because it's one of the most power data collection systems in existence right now. I'm not saying that all of this stuff is right or anything like that, but it's sort of inevitable. The more powerful we make devices, the more data they can store, the faster than can leverage that data, it simply become part of computing, how it's used and what it can do. Whatever one wants to think about the cloud and data collection and analytics there's tremendous power in there. It's not going away and Linux systems are at the core of this stuff.

What most interesting about that last sentence, there are people that go on about how important Windows Media Center is or how incredible tons of UI customization is. But playing games or using Office and other productivity tools, not that important because more people don't need of use them. Until they do.
Click to expand...

Heatlesssun,

While I have no intention of dragging out this discussion, Linux is free in more ways than just cost. It is also a clean, fast, modern operating system with absolutely no hidden agenda - It does exactly what an OS should do, it runs quietly and unobtrusively in the background allowing the user to interface with the machine - It also has an update process that gives the user full control and isn't a mishmash of touch and desktop OS.

The particular distro I'm using is also very well supported allowing me to do everything I expect out of a PC and more.

If, for some obscure reason, the user absoultely requires Office, photoshop, or overpriced and undersupported AAA title games - Than please, stick with Windows. However, bear in mind that you are sticking with windows not because it's necessarily a good OS - You're sticking with Windows because you have to, a less than desirable situation.

Windows is not worth the $200+ it costs here in AU, it's not worth that kind of money at all. Neither is MS Office for that matter.

As far as Hadoop is concerned, it requires the installation of Java. I have never seen Java installed out of the box on any modern packaged distro so I doubt very much that any desktop users are running it. Furthermore, due to the fact that Linux already has superior file systems built into it I see no reason why the enterprise market, possibly with the exception of Google, would require the use of HDFS? It appears the software is designed to store databases of user data, however bear in mind that Hadoop is a software application and not part of the basic OS itself.

[EDIT] Hadoop is FOSS, I fail to see how spyware code could have been implemented in an open source project?!

Once again, if MS want my personal information out of a desktop OS, they can either pay me for it, or supply the OS purely for free - My desktop PC is not a commodity to be exploited by the basic OS itself.

At some stage you are going to have to admit that Microsoft has most definitely overstepped boundaries when it comes to Windows 10 and desktop operating systems - And I suspect they're doing it out of desperation in a shrinking desktop market. Technology is slowing down, people are holding onto PC's for longer, MS aren't selling enough copies of Windows.
 
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lol been using 10 for a long time on a couple pcs and never had a pop up add lol....but i dont use edge either;)
 
I've had MS reset my default browser from Chrome back to Edge twice before the anniversary update. I think I've only received one of those bing rewards ads, other than the suggested apps in the start menu, cortana nag notifications, resetting my notification settings, and automatically creating a skype account in my name without my consent. I've disabled the notifications again and I'll see if they come back.
 
BulletDust said:
Heatlesssun,

While I have no intention of dragging out this discussion, Linux is free in more ways than just cost. It is also a clean, fast, modern operating system with absolutely no hidden agenda - It does exactly what an OS should do, it runs quietly and unobtrusively in the background allowing the user to interface with the machine - It also has an update process that gives the user full control and isn't a mishmash of touch and desktop OS.

The particular distro I'm using is also very well supported allowing me to do everything I expect out of a PC and more.

If, for some obscure reason, the user absoultely requires Office, photoshop, or overpriced and undersupported AAA title games - Than please, stick with Windows. However, bear in mind that you are sticking with windows not because it's necessarily a good OS - You're sticking with Windows because you have to, a less than desirable situation.
Click to expand...

And whatever flaws you see in Windows 10, for the vast majority of consumers it tends to work. I think this is part that gets left out. While technical folks will analyze everything to the nth degree, the typical user just does his or her thing and doesn't think a lot about the underlying complexity of a system. That's not laziness or indifference, that's how technology should work with things working well with little concern about the underlying implementation.

BulletDust said:
Windows is not worth the $200+ it costs here in AU, it's not worth that kind of money at all. Neither is MS Office for that matter.
Click to expand...

The overwhelming majority of consumer Windows users don't pay anywhere near that for Windows, indeed the overwhelming majority of consumer Windows users never buy Windows directly. It's often free on a number of devices these days. On higher end devices it does add some cost, but nothing close to $153 (that's $200 AU as of this moment) at least for the home version. Pro versions add about $50 US on average form my observations.

BulletDust said:
As far as Hadoop is concerned, it requires the installation of Java. I have never seen Java installed out of the box on any modern packaged distro so I doubt very much that any desktop users are running it. Furthermore, due to the fact that Linux already has superior file systems built into it I see no reason why the enterprise market, possibly with the exception of Google, would require the use of HDFS? It appears the software is designed to store databases of user data, however bear in mind that Hadoop is a software application and not part of the basic OS itself.

[EDIT] Hadoop is FOSS, I fail to see how spyware code could have been implemented in an open source project?!
Click to expand...

Just pointing out a bit of irony here. Hadoop while open source is used in a LOT of big data systems. All of the data that's being sucked up by systems these days often is stored in Hadoop systems for analysis and machine learning purposes.

BulletDust said:
Once again, if MS want my personal information out of a desktop OS, they can either pay me for it, or supply the OS purely for free - My desktop PC is not a commodity to be exploited by the basic OS itself.

At some stage you are going to have to admit that Microsoft has most definitely overstepped boundaries when it comes to Windows 10 and desktop operating systems - And I suspect they're doing it out of desperation in a shrinking desktop market. Technology is slowing down, people are holding onto PC's for longer, MS aren't selling enough copies of Windows.
Click to expand...

Nothing I've seen indicates that the basic telemetry in Windows 10 is gathering anything of true personal nature. It's certainly not on the level of data that's collected when all of the services integration is turned on. And in that case it's not just a matter of sucking up personal data but providing functionality. That's the case with all of this stuff these days across the computing spectrum. As much as people complain about the leverage of personal data, it's not going anywhere with systems that are creating ever more convenience and simplicity for users.
 
heatlesssun said:
And whatever flaws you see in Windows 10, for the vast majority of consumers it tends to work. I think this is part that gets left out. While technical folks will analyze everything to the nth degree, the typical user just does his or her thing and doesn't think a lot about the underlying complexity of a system. That's not laziness or indifference, that's how technology should work with things working well with little concern about the underlying implementation.
Click to expand...

While it's simply my word vs your own, as someone that deals with the public regarding computing issues I can assure you that the vast majority of users out there are not happy with their forced update to Windows 10 - They would be far happier to stick with Windows 7. Familiarisation is a powerful thing, no matter what people state on these forums it's one of the main reasons people are hesitant to switch to anything from Windows no matter how good or bad the OS is.

And there's nothing to state that Windows 10 is necessarily a good OS - I don't mind it, but it is a mess.

heatlesssun said:
The overwhelming majority of consumer Windows users don't pay anywhere near that for Windows, indeed the overwhelming majority of consumer Windows users never buy Windows directly. It's often free on a number of devices these days. On higher end devices it does add some cost, but nothing close to $153 (that's $200 AU as of this moment) at least for the home version. Pro versions add about $50 US on average form my observations.
Click to expand...

Unless you buy your Windows keys from less than reputable sites, I can assure you that Windows 10 in Australia will set you back between $150.00 and $280.00 - It's just not worth that much. Yes, a number of people buy Windows bundled with a new PC or laptop, but is it really free? I doubt it.

heatlesssun said:
Just pointing out a bit of irony here. Hadoop while open source is used in a LOT of big data systems. All of the data that's being sucked up by systems these days often is stored in Hadoop systems for analysis and machine learning purposes.
Click to expand...

Perhaps, I don't know any individual or corporation that uses the software. One thing's for certain though, Hadoop is not part of Linux, unlike Windows 10 the OS isn't dialing home and the OS isn't being used as an advertising platform unless you dig into the new Settings Panel and disable tips and tricks (more like forced advertising).

heatlesssun said:
Nothing I've seen indicates that the basic telemetry in Windows 10 is gathering anything of true personal nature. It's certainly not on the level of data that's collected when all of the services integration is turned on. And in that case it's not just a matter of sucking up personal data but providing functionality. That's the case with all of this stuff these days across the computing spectrum. As much as people complain about the leverage of personal data, it's not going anywhere with systems that are creating ever more convenience and simplicity for users.
Click to expand...

This isn't a phone Heatlesssun, this is a desktop PC. Most desktop PC's are more likely to hold personal, sensitive information and nothing, with the exception of error reports, should be sent back to Microsoft. I refuse to just sit by and let Microsoft do what they want because it's the way of the world now and I don't really own the OS.

Windows 10 does it's job - But it isn't a great operating system, it's a familiar operating system, familiarity comforts users. Although I have to say, based on what I'm seeing with my clients, it appears that it's not familiar enough.

All operating systems have their pro's and cons, however it's not the job of the OS to advertise unless the user digs through menu's disabling every little switch that allows the OS to do so. The OS should run quietly and unobtrusively in the background out of the box.

It would also be nice to have full control over updates, updates are a real issue regarding Windows 10.
 
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BulletDust said:
While it's simply my word vs your own, as someone that deals with the public regarding computing issues I can assure you that the vast majority of users out there are not happy with their forced update to Windows 10 - They would be far happier to stick with Windows 7. Familiarisation is a powerful thing, no matter what people state on these forums it's one of the main reasons people are hesitant to switch to anything from Windows no matter how good or bad the OS is.
Click to expand...

Who knows. People that I've personally dealt with going to Windows 10 haven't had any serious problems that I know of. I do hear the horror stories from others. It seems to boil down to the perspective of the person telling the story. The truth is somewhere in the middle.

BulletDust said:
And there's nothing to state that Windows 10 is necessarily a good OS - I don't mind it, but it is a mess.
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For a mess it runs well for me personally on a lot of different kinds of hardware, better than Windows 7 and 8.x at this point. Admittedly the RTM in July 2015 was a good deal rougher in my experience.

BulletDust said:
Unless you buy your Windows keys from less than reputable sites, I can assure you that Windows 10 in Australia will set you back between $150.00 and $280.00 - It's just not worth that much. Yes, a number of people buy Windows bundled with a new PC or laptop, but is it really free? I doubt it.
Click to expand...

Again, who actually buys copies of Windows anymore? Is Windows free? On tablets and cheaper, smaller screen devices Windows 10 is absolutely free, that's why there are now sub-$100 US Windows tablets. The overwhelming majority of consumers globally are paying nowhere near the prices you mention for Windows. Much of Windows 10 is about is monetizing Windows more through indirect sources rather than licensing sales as the market place has very few consumers who will pay for an OS directly. And Microsoft has to offer free versions like I mentioned earlier to be competitive with things like Chromebooks and tablets.


BulletDust said:
Perhaps, I don't know any individual or corporation that uses the software. One thing's for certain though, Hadoop is not part of Linux, unlike Windows 10 the OS isn't dialing home and the OS isn't being used as an advertising platform unless you dig into the new Settings Panel and disable tips and tricks (more like forced advertising).
Click to expand...

Pretty much anyone working with Big Data uses Hadoop. And I wasn't saying that Hadoop is part of Linux, indeed it runs on Windows of anything else that supports Java. But much of the tooling around Hadoop is based on Bash scripting and other traditional Linux tools.

BulletDust said:
This isn't a phone Heatlesssun, this is a desktop PC. Most desktop PC's are more likely to hold personal, sensitive information and nothing, with the exception of error reports, should be sent back to Microsoft. I refuse to just sit by and let Microsoft do what they want because it's the way of the world now and I don't really own the OS.
Click to expand...

There's tons of personal data on mobile devices. My guess is that younger folks have a good deal more of it on phones than laptops or desktops. Again, I've seen no indication that Windows 10 telemetry at it's basic level sends ANY personal data back to Microsoft. Yes, there is data about machine operation, IP addresses, etc. that could be personally identify with other data but no actually data from those programs, personal files, emails. I'm not claiming it to be perfect or ideal but in the realm of personal data online, it's obvious value is limited. At the higher levels of telemetry which are the default, yes, there's a great deal of personal data that's being shared. But much of that is tied to features. For instance, Cortana will scan emails and automatically track packages and that tracking information is sent to every Windows device, PCs and phones, that are signed in with the same Microsoft account. There's it's beyond obvious that personal data is being scanned and shared.

I just think that much of the conversation about this issue gets far too politicized and not actually talked about in a rational manner. I get that some people just want to shut all it that stuff off and have nothing to do with it and I've long said that those options should be there in Windows. But the enormous popularity and power of these features can't be ignored either. And this stuff isn't going away, it's going to become more prevalent. And it has nothing to do with Microsoft. It's the expectation that technology simply has to do more things, make things more convenient and become active in daily lives without human intervention. These are issues that transcend Windows 10 and go to the heart of how much we expect and want technology to do. It's a risk/reward calculation like everything in human existence.

BulletDust said:
Windows 10 does it's job - But it isn't a great operating system, it's a familiar operating system, familiarity comforts users. Although I have to say, based on what I'm seeing with my clients, it appears that it's not familiar enough.


All operating systems have their pro's and cons, however it's not the job of the OS to advertise unless the user digs through menu's disabling every little switch that allows the OS to do so. The OS should run quietly and unobtrusively in the background out of the box.

It would also be nice to have full control over updates, updates are a real issue regarding Windows 10.
Click to expand...

Weather Windows 10 is great OS or not is irrelevant to me. There's nothing else that supports the hardware and software that it does. I understand that different people have different with the support that Windows has, when it comes to PCs, the support for those things is much more likely to be available for Windows than anything else in the client x86 today. If desktop Linux gets that kind of support more people will us it. It's just that simple.
 
heatlesssun said:
Who knows. People that I've personally dealt with going to Windows 10 haven't had any serious problems that I know of. I do hear the horror stories from others. It seems to boil down to the perspective of the person telling the story. The truth is somewhere in the middle.
Click to expand...

It's not necessarily issues, it's the layout. People liked Windows 7, the UI wasn't fragmented, there was a Control Panel, not a Control Panel as well as a Settings Panel. The OS was configured for desktop use, not desktop/touch use. People could access the Control Panel by left clicking on the Start button - Windows 10 is an untidy mess, slightly cleaner than Windows 8, but an untidy mess none the less.

Furthermore, the literal forced nature of the update from Windows 7 to Windows 10 completely destroyed a number of working Windows 7 installs (no doubt complete with a mass of malware/virus infections turning the update on it's head that the consumer was completely unaware of, with the exception that their PC/laptop ran slow as molasses before the update to Windows 10).

The forced nature of the Windows 10 updating process is always a sore point when dealing directly with the consumer - It literally brings most internet connections, especially those in AU, to their knees. And without anyway of controlling the process within the OS itself there is very little anyone can do when that update sucks up all the available bandwidth.

And why the hell do updates still only apply on restart or shutdown?!

heatlesssun said:
Pretty much anyone working with Big Data uses Hadoop. And I wasn't saying that Hadoop is part of Linux, indeed it runs on Windows of anything else that supports Java. But much of the tooling around Hadoop is based on Bash scripting and other traditional Linux tools.
Click to expand...

I'm going to have to take your word for it, even though before you mentioned the software I had never heard of it or experienced it before. The fact remains, the software application is not part of the OS and no OS should harvest data of any kind whatsoever.

heatlesssun said:
There's tons of personal data on mobile devices. My guess is that younger folks have a good deal more of it on phones than laptops or desktops. Again, I've seen no indication that Windows 10 telemetry at it's basic level sends ANY personal data back to Microsoft. Yes, there is data about machine operation, IP addresses, etc. that could be personally identify with other data but no actually data from those programs, personal files, emails. I'm not claiming it to be perfect or ideal but in the realm of personal data online, it's obvious value is limited. At the higher levels of telemetry which are the default, yes, there's a great deal of personal data that's being shared. But much of that is tied to features. For instance, Cortana will scan emails and automatically track packages and that tracking information is sent to every Windows device, PCs and phones, that are signed in with the same Microsoft account. There's it's beyond obvious that personal data is being scanned and shared.

I just think that much of the conversation about this issue gets far too politicized and not actually talked about in a rational manner. I get that some people just want to shut all it that stuff off and have nothing to do with it and I've long said that those options should be there in Windows. But the enormous popularity and power of these features can't be ignored either. And this stuff isn't going away, it's going to become more prevalent. And it has nothing to do with Microsoft. It's the expectation that technology simply has to do more things, make things more convenient and become active in daily lives without human intervention. These are issues that transcend Windows 10 and go to the heart of how much we expect and want technology to do. It's a risk/reward calculation like everything in human existence.
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All my business accounting is done on my desktop PC, there is no practical way I can achieve such things on mobile devices, even Windows mobile devices - The screen real estate alone is just too limiting. That's personal data that I don't want shared with anyone else, even if there is a chance it could happen I'll ditch the OS in question. I use my mobile to email, make phone calls, SMS and access my calendar. If the younger generation want to share all their personal data via mobile devices it's most likely because they've never known any better, they've literally never known a society where privacy was respected and not handed over by clicking 'I Agree' in an EULA - To make things even sadder, they've never known computing that wasn't Wintel based, Windows is all they know - That's monopolisation at it's finest and shouldn't even be legal.

As a society there is no reason why we should just hand our lives over to a multinational corporation that was simply allowed to grow way too large. I can achieve everything I want/need out of technology without the invasion of privacy.

heatlesssun said:
Weather Windows 10 is great OS or not is irrelevant to me. There's nothing else that supports the hardware and software that it does. I understand that different people have different with the support that Windows has, when it comes to PCs, the support for those things is much more likely to be available for Windows than anything else in the client x86 today. If desktop Linux gets that kind of support more people will us it. It's just that simple.
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Toyota's are common, people are comfortable with them, they do everything expected of them. That doesn't make Toyota's the best or most desirable vehicles ever made considering the want's/need's of the many individuals out there purchasing motor vehicles....

heatlesssun said:
Again, who actually buys copies of Windows anymore? Is Windows free? On tablets and cheaper, smaller screen devices Windows 10 is absolutely free, that's why there are now sub-$100 US Windows tablets. The overwhelming majority of consumers globally are paying nowhere near the prices you mention for Windows. Much of Windows 10 is about is monetizing Windows more through indirect sources rather than licensing sales as the market place has very few consumers who will pay for an OS directly. And Microsoft has to offer free versions like I mentioned earlier to be competitive with things like Chromebooks and tablets.
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As a tech I buy Windows all the time, it's not worth a cent, but costs around $150.00 - $200.00. As gamers building custom PC's, I'm quite sure users of these very forums buy Windows all the time. Purchasing Windows from a shady key sites in order to keep things affordable simply highlights the fact that people cannot see value in the full retail price of Windows as an operating system.

As for MS Office, people use it because they have to, not because they're happy shelling out hundreds of $$ for the privilege of using it. With the Governments of the world slowly shifting to the open ODF format, with a bit of luck we can do away with proprietary formats that achieve no more than to make Microsoft money and embrace a more logical way to share documentation - Whether that be by using MS Office or an open source equivalent office suite.
 
heatlesssun said:
Who knows. People that I've personally dealt with going to Windows 10 haven't had any serious problems that I know of. I do hear the horror stories from others. It seems to boil down to the perspective of the person telling the story. The truth is somewhere in the middle.
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The biggest issue I've seen with Windows 10 happened to my laptop. Almost 80% of the time that I would be away from laptop and come back to a dimmed screen, it had to be hard power cycled because it would never wake up from sleep. It also wouldn't shut down. You could hear it power down most of the system, but it kept a fan running with a blinking light and it would have to be hard shutdown. If i told it to sleep, sometimes it would power off instead.

This was on a modern Windows 8 laptop with a Core i5, released right before Windows 8.1 came out, however it did not run well at all with Windows 10. I knew that this was a driver issue, but since it had to be hard power cycled there was never a memory dump to narrow it down. I tried updating all of the latest drivers and firmware from the manufacturer and that didn't work either. Google searching with my laptops model number only came up with people having wake timers wake up their computer up from sleep to check for system updates. It wasn't until I wondered if this was a common issue with other windows 8 laptops that I discovered it was a problem with Intel Management Engine 11. Google "laptop IME 11" and you'll see half of the users who were left out to dry by their laptop manufacturers, Microsoft, and Intel. I had to use a driver solution that was posted by another laptop manufacturer. I don't know if a normal user would be too happy about that, more than likely they would roll back to windows 8.1
 
lol, well I think windows 10 is alright now that it is stable. I'm just saying Microsoft could easily fix some of these problems that they've been having, but they chose not to. A normal user shouldn't have to pay a repair shop to fix a broken laptop, that's caused by a stock windows driver.
 
BulletDust said:
It's not necessarily issues, it's the layout. People liked Windows 7, the UI wasn't fragmented, there was a Control Panel, not a Control Panel as well as a Settings Panel. The OS was configured for desktop use, not desktop/touch use. People could access the Control Panel by left clicking on the Start button - Windows 10 is an untidy mess, slightly cleaner than Windows 8, but an untidy mess none the less.
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I agree the bifurcation of Control Panel and Settings is an issue that's part of the hybrid desktop/tablet UI approach. The situation has improved in that Settings contains the most common items.

BulletDust said:
Furthermore, the literal forced nature of the update from Windows 7 to Windows 10 completely destroyed a number of working Windows 7 installs (no doubt complete with a mass of malware/virus infections turning the update on it's head that the consumer was completely unaware of, with the exception that their PC/laptop ran slow as molasses before the update to Windows 10).


The forced nature of the Windows 10 updating process is always a sore point when dealing directly with the consumer - It literally brings most internet connections, especially those in AU, to their knees. And without anyway of controlling the process within the OS itself there is very little anyone can do when that update sucks up all the available bandwidth.


And why the hell do updates still only apply on restart or shutdown?!
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Obviously the Windows 10 update process is problematic and needs to be improved. Microsoft was too aggressive with the 7/8.x to 10 upgrade process though I know people that never had any issues with it and never got upgraded. As for Windows 10 updates, as the update process is now cumulative, selecting individual updates can't work by design. I'm not defending anything here, that's just how iterative delivery works as each update creates dependencies on prior updates and of course it has it problems.

BulletDust said:
To make things even sadder, they've never known computing that wasn't Wintel based, Windows is all they know - That's monopolisation at it's finest and shouldn't even be legal.
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Sure they have, ARM phones. And those phones aren't isolated silos with other devices, people share data across phones and PCs constantly these days through cloud services and storage.

BulletDust said:
As a society there is no reason why we should just hand our lives over to a multinational corporation that was simply allowed to grow way too large. I can achieve everything I want/need out of technology without the invasion of privacy.
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It's far from just one corporation that provides cloud services and integration.

BulletDust said:
As a tech I buy Windows all the time, it's not worth a cent, but costs around $150.00 - $200.00. As gamers building custom PC's, I'm quite sure users of these very forums buy Windows all the time. Purchasing Windows from a shady key sites in order to keep things affordable simply highlights the fact that people cannot see value in the full retail price of Windows as an operating system.

As for MS Office, people use it because they have to, not because they're happy shelling out hundreds of $$ for the privilege of using it. With the Governments of the world slowly shifting to the open ODF format, with a bit of luck we can do away with proprietary formats that achieve no more than to make Microsoft money and embrace a more logical way to share documentation - Whether that be by using MS Office or an open source equivalent office suite.
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As you mention a lot, most PC users aren't gamers. Consumers who actually buy copies of Windows is pretty small group. Office Open XML isn't proprietary. I know people will debate Microsoft's assertion of the standard and that it's overly complicated, etc. but anyone can implement royalty free and many do, like LibreOffice.

I don't have anything against Linux or FOSS, I use plenty of it on my Windows machines. I've been using Linux off and on for nearly 20 years, we use a lot of Linux servers at work, Hadoop for instance. Good technology to get into professionally and getting exposed to it is cool in the era of Big Data.

Again, personally the OS to me is irrelevant. But the hardware and software aren't. Microsoft Office is vastly superior to the open source alternatives. Not everyone needs all that it can do, it's more of a platform these days that an suite of applications. Gaming isn't something that most PC users get into but it is a big part of the experience. I'm picking up an HTC Vive for Christmas, that's the wife's present. I just like all the things I can do with Windows devices. That they run Windows doesn't even matter. If I could do all the same things under Linux I'd use that.
 
Look, from what I gather in these forums, it's fairly obvious the proportion of users posting here are gamers of some degree - And generally speaking gamers build their own PC's, they need an OS so they buy Windows.

I don't think that's too far fetched a claim.

I do think it's bold to claim that Office is vastly superior though. Over the years it's been force fed to us and as a result people believe they need it since it saves files in proprietary formats by default as opposed to open source standards that most wouldn't even know exists. But take the proprietary standards out of the equation and MS Office, Libre Office and WPS Office are all great products - Not forgetting the Google suite.

The fact that you claim Office to be a platform is the very crux of the issue here. No proprietary standard should be accepted as the chosen platform when there's obvious cross compatibility issues. Having said that, WPS Office has run any proprietary document I've thrown at it with no issue and virtually looks and behaves the same as Office - The Chinese have done some serious reverse engineering with that product.

Af6k7vv.png
 
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BulletDust said:
Look, from what I gather in these forums, it's fairly obvious the proportion of users posting here are gamers of some degree - And generally speaking gamers build their own PC's, they need an OS so they buy Windows.

I don't think that's too far fetched a claim.
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Sure, those that build gaming PCs buy copies of Windows. But that's a niche even within PC gamers. If one builds a gaming PC with typical specs around here and plays the latest titles, the cost of Windows is fairly minor. And in that case it's not so much a matter of Windows being worth the cost, it's really the only option if one wants to play all of the latest and PC games.

BulletDust said:
I do think it's bold to claim that Office is vastly superior though. Over the years it's been force fed to us and as a result people believe they need it since it saves files in proprietary formats by default as opposed to open source standards that most wouldn't even know exists. But take the proprietary standards out of the equation and MS Office, Libre Office and WPS Office are all great products - Not forgetting the Google suite.

The fact that you claim Office to be a platform is the very crux of the issue here. No proprietary standard should be accepted as the chosen platform when there's obvious cross compatibility issues. Having said that, WPS Office has run any proprietary document I've thrown at it with no issue and virtually looks and behaves the same as Office - The Chinese have done some serious reverse engineering with that product.

Af6k7vv.png
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Office does a lot and is supported on a lot of platforms. But as I've said before, it's not about the OS, it's not about one application or even on type of device. It's about the ecosystem, that's what pushes devices. People buy computing devices to do whatever they see the need or desire to do. Often their needs are complex but if they want Office or a game or a particular device, having access to a broad ecosystem of devices and applications simply makes it things easier. If one wants to use LibreOffice or WPS Office or MS Office or all three, the option is there.
 
BulletDust said:
Look, from what I gather in these forums, it's fairly obvious the proportion of users posting here are gamers of some degree - And generally speaking gamers build their own PC's, they need an OS so they buy Windows.

I don't think that's too far fetched a claim.

I do think it's bold to claim that Office is vastly superior though. Over the years it's been force fed to us and as a result people believe they need it since it saves files in proprietary formats by default as opposed to open source standards that most wouldn't even know exists. But take the proprietary standards out of the equation and MS Office, Libre Office and WPS Office are all great products - Not forgetting the Google suite.

The fact that you claim Office to be a platform is the very crux of the issue here. No proprietary standard should be accepted as the chosen platform when there's obvious cross compatibility issues. Having said that, WPS Office has run any proprietary document I've thrown at it with no issue and virtually looks and behaves the same as Office - The Chinese have done some serious reverse engineering with that product.

Af6k7vv.png
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Um wait, they copied the ribbon interface? Oh well, wouldn't be the first crime against humanity China ever did.
 
heatlesssun said:
Sure, those that build gaming PCs buy copies of Windows. But that's a niche even within PC gamers. If one builds a gaming PC with typical specs around here and plays the latest titles, the cost of Windows is fairly minor. And in that case it's not so much a matter of Windows being worth the cost, it's really the only option if one wants to play all of the latest and PC games.
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Personally, I don't see $280.00 as a fairly minor expense, especially when I have trouble justifying the cost of the purchase.

B00nie said:
Um wait, they copied the ribbon interface? Oh well, wouldn't be the first crime against humanity China ever did.
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Personally, I can't stand the ribbon interface.
 
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