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Patch reliability is unclear, but widespread attacks make patching prudent. Go ahead and patch, but watch out for potential problems. |
Buried in the latest insider edition is this little nugget…. Changes and Improvements [General] We are continuing the exploration of badging on the
[See the full post at: Microsoft… I’m not in the mood for this]
Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher
Sick of it all. It NEVER stops. Really thinking about moving all my clients that I can to Linux
Just another example of Microsoft arrogance.
We must be stupid if we make a conscious decision not to follow their “suggestions”. After all, it may be our computer, but we’re only guests in their Windows World. So, like an evil empire, they take steps to “influence” the populace to conform to their world view. Nagging and annoying the resistance is only a temporary measure. If resistance remains, the evil empire moves to active enforcement of its dictates.
It’s disgusting.
We are continuing the exploration of badging
I think they mean “badgering”…
There should be no “remind me later” there should be a “just knock it off”.
I concur. I don’t run a standard Windows installation for this very (among other) reason (although some here chide me for this). There are Microsoft “improvements” in Windows iterations over the years that get in the way of methods I have developed over very many years of making Windows a background platform for doing the things I want to do. I don’t want Windows inserting itself into “improving” the way I want to do things. I’ll take care of that end, thank you very much.
The main reason I have Search (and its Indexing) disabled is that I already know where my data is. For all the “Special Folders” Microsoft has introduced, I have had dedicated partitions in place for those same categories for years. That dovetails very nicely into drive imaging for backup purposes, making that part of my routine maintenance simpler, quicker and easier.
As for Microsoft Start Menu Tweaks, I don’t see them, because I don’t use Microsoft’s Start Menu. I have difficulty understanding the mindset of staying in Microsoft’s lane while at the same time continually complaining about Microsoft’s lane. I know that Microsoft is not going to re-code Windows to run the way I want it to, so instead of complaining about it, I dig into ways to change Windows into the way I want it to run. As for the Start Menu, $4.99 makes it go away.
I don’t need or want to log in with a Microsoft account. While I do have a Microsoft account for OneDrive, I do not have a Microsoft account among the Users on my PC’s. I already have the Windows Experience that I want, and I already know how to eliminate Microsoft’s interference with the Windows Experience that I want.
I concur. I don’t run a standard Windows installation for this very (among other) reason (although some here chide me for this). There are Microsoft “improvements” in Windows iterations over the years that get in the way of methods I have developed over very many years of making Windows a background platform for doing the things I want to do. I don’t want Windows inserting itself into “improving” the way I want to do things. I’ll take care of that end, thank you very much.
Totally agree!
An OS should not be intrusive, it should do it’s job without getting in the users way or annoying them with unwanted tips/ads!
Like you, I’ve been “tweaking” my Windows installations since WinXP to make it work the way I want and not how Microsoft “thinks” it should.
Linux is still not practical…
Linux won’t be the best choice for everyone, but it’s simply not correct to make a blanket statement that it is “not practical.” I have been using it exclusively since about 2016 on my PCs, and it works for me. I don’t miss Windows at all, and it is at the point that I removed my dual-boot Windows/Linux setups and went to straight Linux a few years back, including on my gaming laptops.
I could not say Linux has been problem-free, but neither was Windows (and that was before the “consumers are the beta testers” era), and my brother’s work Mac is far from perfect either.
…and not supported by banking if things go wrong. “Error unrecognized OS there for everything is your fault even though it is not have a nice day.”
In the (unlikely?) event that I would have an issue in a given bank’s web site that is sufficient to warrant a call to tech support, I could easily use my Windows VM, or else I could boot my Win2USB installation of Windows on a USB thumb drive. It would be possible to do the whole thing from the VM or USB Windows, or you could verify that the issue is present in Windows too, and don’t tell the agent you are in Linux, since you know at that point that it is not relevant.
I would much rather just decide to “cross that bridge when we come to it” than to use an OS that I don’t like all the time just in case there someday may be a tech support issue with online banking that would have them tell me they can’t help me because I am using Linux (which would be a clear sign I picked the wrong bank).
Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)
I have tools in my physical toolbox I have not used in at least that long. I am not throwing them away, though. It is better to have a tool and not need it than to need a tool and not have it. You never know when a bank web site might, as an example, have problems that cause me to have to call into the tech support line, only to find that they only “support” Windows and Mac. Just ’cause it has not happened yet does not mean it won’t.
When I say I use Linux exclusively, I mean as a daily driver OS, as opposed to the previous setup I had where I dual booted, where I would sometimes use Windows for regular daily use. I started with Windows, which had been around since the beginning on all my hardware, and when I decided it was time to move on, I added Linux to the existing PCs of that time (none of which are still in use now), then began the process of migration. I would boot Windows for some thing that I had not worked out how to do in Linux just yet, then go back to Linux, and so on. I’d figure out how to do the things I booted into Windows for, then go from there.
One day I realized I had not booted Windows in a few months, and that the migration was, for all intents and purposes, complete.
I have used Windows for testing things (like in my series of posts where I tested power consumption on Windows and Linux on the same machine), and for updating firmware on system devices where those updates come only in the form of Windows executables. The firmware for the motherboard itself (often called “BIOS” on modern PCs even though it is UEFI) are generally platform-agnostic, but the updates for the Thunderbolt controller, touchpad, and even the display panel on my Dell XPS only come in Windows format.
Those kinds of things require bare-metal Windows, but they don’t happen often enough to warrant keeping the dual-boot setup I used to have when there are options like Win2USB.
I don’t consider one-off odds and ends like that to be “using” Windows in the usual sense of “a Windows user.”
I haven’t actually used the VM in quite some time. I have used to use it to program my gaming mouse, which predictably comes only with Windows software (after it was programmed, the changes would be stored in the mouse’s firmware and be available on any OS or device the mouse was plugged into), but I don’t use that mouse anymore, as it just kills my wrist to use a “flat” mouse (palm facing downward) these days.
Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)
I feel your pain; I will stop short of saying MS is evil but they have been abusively aggressive probably since the Windows 10 rollout with the nasty GWX installation push. If you build a new system, you have to constantly figure out the latest workaround to avoid setting up an MS account to complete the OOBE installation. The problem generically seems that MS has become preoccupied with the “what can the Windows OS do for us” question, rather than “what can the Windows OS do for OS users” perspective. So much of what they do now is designed to augment their data scraping capabilities and ability to generate byproduct advertising revenue that they are forgetting that the OS is still a licensed product. They have tried to “fuzz” the discussion with the software as a service rhetoric, however, many users still pay a hefty upfront license fee to activate the product. If they want to push Azure to consumers, do it the old fashion way of marketing the cloud services on what they can do for the user and let the users decide how it fits in with their individual computing needs.
I will stop short of saying MS is evil but they have been abusively aggressive probably since the Windows 10 rollout with the nasty GWX installation push.
“Abusively aggressive” is a good way to put it. Way to go Frank.
Microsoft’s Windows should be a complement to our computer related activities not an impediment.
We have “smart” appliances including a dishwasher. When it is full we press a couple of buttons and it runs. The operating system on our computers should be like the software in our appliances – out of sight and out of mind.
Unlike our appliances, Windows is a constant distraction from what we have computers for – the analysis and interpretation of massive amounts of data.
And Windows 10 is no better at supporting our apps then its predecessor operating systems. We are using the same software as we have been for decades. And we do not need to constantly tweak our apps to make them work the way we want them to.
Over the last week alone, I have spent more time fiddling with Windows and other Microsoft software then working on revenue generating analysis.
It is getting to the point when we will have to find alternatives to Microsoft products due to their cost (in lost productivity) for setup and maintenance.
Floggings will continue until morale improves…
May the farce be with you!
Just another consequence of “Windows as a service” and Microsoft’s rules of the game where they constantly move the goal posts and change whatever they want with little to no regard for the end user who is only looked at as just something to monetize.
Not much you can do about it other than to stop playing their game and switch to a different OS that does not use such a controlling service model and where the end user is still respected and allowed full control over the operating system.
Otherwise expect more of the same in the future as Microsoft has truly lost the plot of what an operating system is supposed to be.
With all due respect Susan, Microsoft IS evil!
I’ve been around a long time, since Dos and Win 3.1, and have been with vendors who had MS reps come in tell them, “Here’s how to bork systems with OS2 when you demonstrate it.” And who left the clear impression it wouldn’t go well for the vendors if they pushed alternatives to MS.
MS has used similar tactics with hardware vendors. They don’t want choice and continue to not only making it difficult to install alternatives, but also eliminate options while forcing their users to be beta testers in order to save money.
To them, the user is simply a cash cow. If you choose to use MS, that’s fine, but don’t expect them to respect or put their customers first; unless you’re a major corporation or the government. The culture Bill Gates put in place won’t allow that.
If you choose to use MS, that’s fine, but don’t expect them to respect or put their customers first; unless you’re a major corporation or the government. The culture Bill Gates put in place won’t allow that.
The thing is though, when Gates was in charge, Windows was much more respectful of its users than it is now. There used to be lines that MS would not cross and, monetizing Windows (beyond the costs of Windows licenses themselves), was one of them; even for consumer-level users. It’s not that Microsoft is more profit-driven than it was then; indeed, the moniker “Micro$oft” that some have applied came from the Gates era.
My impression from that era was that MS was genuinely trying to provide a Windows that served the interests of the Windows user base, while being pointedly hostile to any potential competitors, and in doing so to make piles of money by selling Windows licenses and perpetuating the Microsoft hegemony with Windows at the center. That began to change during the Ballmer era when they began to add bits and pieces that served Microsoft at the expense of customers (most notably the Windows 8 UI that they had hoped would provide a stepping stone to having a credible mobile presence). But when Nadella replaced him, it became “milk it for all it’s worth” on the consumer level.
Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)
I never have a problem with these sorts of suggestions popping up provided one of the options is “Don’t ask me again”. That’s all it needs.
Y’know, it’s times like this that really make me miss my first customizable configuration of Norton Desktop running over Windows 3.11 and having the freedom to edit the config.sys and autoexec.bat files in MS-DOS 6.22 before everything loaded…
Startallback
Sorts out most of Microsoft’s impositions, but I agree that we should not have to resort to such measures. I have three machines here all running Win 11, both home and pro versions. None of them qualify to run win 11 but, with the help of some install software, they do. And one of them is running an Intel 775 processor with 4 GB of memory.
mbhelwig
I thought the following blog article and related comments would be of interest regarding some user efforts to implement “shell enhancement” programs.
So this might be why explorer.exe would sometimes randomly crash on my win10 1809 with 7+ taskbar tweaker, interesting.
As I read through your post and all of the replies I feel grateful that I have always signed in locally and never chosen to sign into Windows via MS. My start menu is a simplified version of Open Shell.
I’ve always been of the opinion that less is better than more. Good and evil never entered into my decision to use Windows because I view its OS as a tool for me. Perhaps I’m missing something in all the outrage directed at MS.
Peace, CAS
Win 10 Pro 22H2(OS Build 19045.2846)
I no longer think of WasS (Windows as a Service).
It’s now devolved into WaaG (Windows as a Game), played by apparent interns with no interest in anything other than changing untested UI artefacts in Windows… and most certainly not interested in sorting out Windows 10’s long-standing issues with networking.
Whatever…
As Microsoft seeks, then Microft will surely sow (a parody of Galatians 6:7).
Such a shame, given our pleas of “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” (Matthew 7:7)… another parody in the face of Microsoft removing TechNet and other background documentation.
I don’t think Microsoft (under Satya Natella) is interested in us end users at all nowadays.
It’s quite obviously ‘our way or no way’ going forward…
I wonder how that will play out. 🙂
I have not been as active here as I once was. This is largely due to migrating to Linux at home. There will always be some glitches, but all my gaming is the same on Steam. I admit that it is a bit disappointing to find Windowsland is still a PITA, and actually worse for many. However, a lot of people I know say they just ignore what they do not like about Windows because as long as it starts up, they are good.
Actually, I firmly believe now that there is only one shared truth for many products now, be they good, bad, or mediocre, and that is SHAREHOLDER VALUE. As long as folks make money it will continue to get better, stagnate, or fail. No matter what happens there are always those who are making money.
More worrisome is very few companies who innovate actually grow to be a contender…, they just get bought out by the gatekeepers.
Yes, WaaG, though it has always been a bit of a game to me as documentation has always been sparse – from RS coco, and Commodore, and 3.11, and 95. But, to me, it was fun back then. Metro on 8 was a bit of a shocker: just how far is MS willing to go to knowingly annoy it’s customers (they learned not that far). Win 10 is, to me, almost as easy to use as win7 was. Now.
But we have matured. So has MS. Gone are the folks that wrote XP, and 8. MS has changed from what can we do on these things called computers to how can we continue to make money off these “users”. Still a game, but the stakes have changed.
Gosh such vehemence! Speaking for myself, I’ve had a Microsoft Account for over 25 years now. It has been my primary email account for all that time but I use Outlook Online to access my mail nowadays. I don’t sign into my computer using the account. Just today when I signed in to check my email, the following popped up (the ************ you see is my doing):
Clicking the “Learn more” link here will show you what all the privacy settings are for a Microsoft Account. You don’t have to sign-in to see all the places a Microsoft Account comes into play. For myself, probably much to Microsoft’s chagrin, I have everything turned off. As a result I don’t get that “personalized experience” Microsoft is so desperate to foist on me. I have had a fine “experience” without ever purchasing any Microsoft products what-so-ever over those 25 years.
After I did a fresh install recently on a test system, the settings app displayed
“Get even more out of Windows
With a few quick selections, you’ll be on your way to enjoying the full Microsoft experience.”
as is shown here:
Just for kicks I clicked on “Let’s go!” and followed through clicking yes on everything. Naturally it wanted a Microsoft Account sign-in right off the bat which I obliged it with. The rest of it was just the standard privacy settings followed by how will you use this system culminating in trying to sell me on Microsoft Office 365 and more space on One drive. Sadly for Microsoft, I of course declined, and later switched back to the local account and scrubbed out any vestiges of the Microsoft Account related settings. So far the setting app hasn’t displayed that message again.
Note: See Don’t activate the “Let’s Go” button in the Windows 10 Settings application for a nicely detailed write-up of this by Martin Brinkmann.
My point is that Microsoft has been pushing this for a very long time now and I will make use of a free Microsoft Account as I see fit in ways which benefit me and not Microsoft. I have never had to pay for it or give away any secret information to keep it. Just like over-the-air free TV, there will always be commercials which I have had a lifetime’s experience in tuning-out and ignoring.
Note: I posted this without seeing @Rick Corbett’s post first. By “vehemence” I was referring to all the posts I saw here.
Just another consequence of “Windows as a service”
The gist of most posts appear to be “Windows as an irritant”.
Something that *should* be an inconsequential background platform ends up as the reason for this and many other forums as Windows users battle… Windows.
IMO there’s just something fundamentally wrong with the entire current paradigm.
I don’t battle other household appliances… why on earth should I need to battle my laptop/PC?
I don’t think Susan said that.
How to Disable “Let’s Finish Setting Up Your Device” on Windows
Thanks for the tip. I hadn’t realised I could turn it off.
Chris
Win 10 Pro x64 Group A
No.
And think of how much faster MS can get those annoying messages to your screen!!!!!!!!!
I thought the following blog article and related comments would be of interest regarding some user efforts to implement “shell enhancement” programs.
I’m late, and I wrote a much longer rant about this post that I lost, but I’ll still say this – god this incensed me. The Windows shell team is clearly aware that people are using third-party software to mitigate the damage they’ve done to the UI in the last decade, but instead of listening to feedback or reversing course or doing anything to fix what was once their flagship product, Raymond’s reaction here was “I’m getting crash reports from a nefarious app that does something I don’t like? Cool, let me write a blogpost patronizing the people who use it :)” and it’s infuriating, Raymond Chen was one of the few MS employees I used to have a shred of respect for too. Microsoft’s always been arrogant, but they used to tolerate alternative shells and desktop customization tools like ExplorerPatcher. Now you can’t even replace their crappy new taskbar without a senior employee calling you out on his corporate blog, it’s honestly gotten to the point where I think they snuck in this MS account ad out of sheer contempt.
Combine this with their invasive telemetry, forced updates and the countless other ways in which they’ve ruined Windows since 7 (which I’m still clinging onto, guess why), and I physically don’t know how people tolerate vanilla Win10/11 or any recent MS software. Susan somehow doesn’t think they’re evil after dealing with their patches for decades – that takes patience – so if she’s calling them out on this, you know they’ve screwed up.
I know the userbase here leans older, but I grew up on XP and 7 and there are still plenty of us who are sick of MS and Big Tech’s laziness, smugness and tyrannical behavior. I hope they get what’s coming to them, but if the public was willing to accept 10 and 11 then let’s just say I’m not exactly confident in the future of Windows as a platform. Linux is cool in some ways, but it still sucks in areas that Win2k solved last millennium, which is kind of depressing? All I can say is that we’re living in interesting times 😀
Re: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20230324-00/?p=107966#comments (Adventures in application compatibility: The case of the jump into the middle of an instruction from nowhere)
These crashes are Microsoft’s fault. Having a third-party shell program patch Window’s Explorer just means Microsoft has failed to provide the API’s necessary for the shell enhancement program to implement its features. This is a restraint of trade issue. Microsoft would not be in this position if they had a robust UI API to start with. The Microsoft UI team should start working with the companies writing these shell enhancement programs, providing them with the API’s they need. More competition in the Windows desktop UI space would be a healthy development advantageous to Windows users.
Windows 10 22H2 desktops & laptops on Dell, HP, ASUS; No servers, no domain.
Microsoft is adding MSN ads/news.. to the weather app.
(English translation)
The Weather app on Windows is (was) one of the only apps from Microsoft that hasn’t been inundated with news from Microsoft Start. But that is changing. On Windows 10 and Windows 11 Retail we still have version 4.53.50501.
As we have known them for a long time. In the Insider versions, the 4.53. 51 095 distributed and Microsoft made some changes there. Here’s a comparison from the prediction view:..
Let’s start with the positive changes. The app has now received tabs. So you can quickly switch back and forth between different cities. You can now switch between Fahrenheit and Celsius very quickly there, too. No longer in the temperature display, as before. Whether the new view of the prediction is now positive or negative, I leave it open.
As for other not-so-pleasant changes, get ready for a swarm of recommended content on each page inside the app. Once you scroll down, the app will greet you with the MSN News feed, infamous for feeding customers with all sorts of questionable (sometimes outright harmful) content. Luckily, the feed focuses on weather news, so it does not try to shove celebrity gossip and other nonsense down your throat…
The negative aspects are that you have now installed advertising under “Prediction” in the top right corner. And under almost every menu item the news from Microsoft Start. So we have these news reports almost everywhere and are always and everywhere up to date..
I remember when Windows was just an unobtrusive (and almost infinitely-configurable) OS running in the background, leaving us to get on with what we wanted/needed to do.
After a bit of a rocky start, Windows 10 has settled down to being a stable platform… whilst Windows 11 appears to be hellbent on becoming little more than an outright, in your face, news/advertising distraction… with the more grotesque elements being backported into Windows 10.
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