Windows 11 Spam all ready…

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I guess this is the start of it. Microsoft spamming Windows 10 with “Windows 11 is coming” popups…

Grrrr  🙂

6 users thanked author for this post.

Lars220, Ascaris, Cybertooth, johnf, Will Fastie, Microfix

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Get ready for GWXI and a red X that accepts instead of closing the popup!
So glad our hardware does NOT comply with Win11 😛

Windows - commercial by definition and now function...

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It was never a red X, but it always closed the popup. 😉

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After the horribly-produced announcement, the lack of date certain, the complete confusion over hardware compatibility, and the pulling of the PC Health Check app, this popup in Windows 10 is not just annoying, it’s insulting.

That popup should not appear on any system that is not compatible with Windows 11. Good luck on Microsoft getting that right.

And that popup should not appear until general availability has arrived. Why pester us about something that is not real?

Microsoft needs to get its house in order on this thing.

4 users thanked author for this post.

R-Type, Ascaris, Charlie, johnf

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b wrote:

It was never a red X, but it always closed the popup. 😉

It was a red-x and it downloaded and installed Windows 10.

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It was white (on red). It didn’t immediately download/install anything. It did close the popup.

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Because you’re on Pro, probably, and have the ability to make most of this junk disappear.  Those insisting on staying on Home will continue the banshee wail.  I’d expect 11 Home with Chredge to be both an ad server and spaminator.  A Chromebook with Office, argh!

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wavy

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b wrote:

It didn’t immediately download/install anything. It did close the popup.

No, it didn’t immediately download or install anything (because by the time it presented the popup, the background download had presumably already completed). Yes, it did close the popup. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t a dirty trick.

The first revision of the GWX adware gave the person (who had not “reserved” Windows 10 or shown any interest in it) two buttons, marked “Upgrade now” or “Upgrade Later,” but no “Cancel,” with “Upgrade Later” being in the position “Cancel” should have been in, on the lower right.

Since there was no cancel button, people logically presumed that “Upgrade Later” button that was in its place was like the “Maybe Later” button they have had to click a thousand times to cancel website popups trying to get them to sign up for various newsletters, in which case “Maybe Later” was the closest available approximation of the cancel button.

If the person pressed “Upgrade Later” with GWX, though, it would perform what can only be considered an example of malicious compliance… it would literally “upgrade later,” starting the upgrade at some point in the future without asking the user for any further permission, which is not at all how a reasonable person would think it would act, based on previous experience with Microsoft dialogs.

With that version of GWX, if someone clicked the (tiny) close button, it would not schedule the upgrade, and would behave as a Cancel button would have. That is how it should behave… the close button should cancel the impending action, with no change to the user-specified status quo. The issue was the lack of an actual Cancel button.

People learned of this method to avoid Windows 10, but soon Microsoft changed how GWX behaved. It would then pick a time and take the liberty to schedule the update (even though the user had not expressed any interest in having such an upgrade performed), and if the user clicked the X to close the dialog, it did so, but would leave the unrequested scheduled update timer in place. Now the “hit the X to avoid Windows 10” was inverted, and it was “Hit X to have us install Windows 10 at some point in the future.”

Taking the liberty to schedule an OS upgrade without asking, then popping up a window informing the person of the change (not asking for permission, but informing them that it was scheduled), and having the close button merely dismiss the dialog and not the upgrade, is another dark pattern… or two, really, since either GWX dialog taken alone would be a dark pattern, while the two juxtaposed so that the meaning of the close X button changed is a third one.

It is true that if people read the dialog carefully, they would have realized what it was telling them, but since they had not agreed to any upgrade, it was reasonable for them to conclude that no upgrade had been scheduled, and to simply dismiss the unwanted adware dialog as the nuisance that it was.

Dark patterns are used by malware authors, PUP (Potentially Unwanted Program) installers, and unethical travel sites to trick people into agreeing to something when they are actively trying to say no. They are not something one would expect a company like Microsoft to resort to. Not at that point, anyway– I doubt this would surprise anyone anymore.

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b wrote:

It was white (on red). It didn’t immediately download/install anything. It did close the popup.

Not on the Windows 7 laptop in my house.
The x closed the pop-up and continued by downloading and installing Windows 10 in the background.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3073457/how-microsofts-nasty-new-windows-10-pop-up-tricks-you-into-upgrading.html

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This GWX popup?

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I see MS still hasn’t learned anything from the GWX fiasco. No surprise there since beginning with Window 8 they’ve ‘forgotten’ what an operating system is supposed to do – manage your PC’s hardware and run programs (not apps).

So, where is this ‘spam’ coming from? I have Windows 10 Home and Pro fully up to date on 2 separate PC’s here and I haven’t seen it on either one so far?

Mind you, both PC’s are not ‘worthy’ of a Windows 11 upgrade so far seeing as they have 4th and 7th Generation CPU’s  so that may have something to do with it?

Plus, I run O&O’s ShutUp10 and StopUpdates10  and I also have just about every MS domain known to man blocked with the Hosts File (unless I’m doing monthly Windows Updates) so that might stop most or all of this rubbish as well?

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Carl D wrote:

I also have just about every MS domain known to man blocked with the Hosts File (unless I’m doing monthly Windows Updates) so that might stop most or all of this rubbish as well?

Have a look at this Petri.com article – Windows 10 Ignoring the Hosts File for Specific Name Resolution – which explains why the HOSTS file has been ignored and continues to be ignored for many of the MS domains.

My own testing with Nir Sofer’s CurrPorts and Glasswire shows that – depending where you live – most Microsoft Updates are delivered from Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) like Akamai on behalf of Microsoft instead of directly from Microsoft itself.

Note also that Defender now flags HOSTS files that block Microsoft’s telemetry servers. Have a look at this BleepingComputer article – HOSTS file blocking telemetry is now flagged as a risk – for more info.

Hope this helps…

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R-Type, Carl D

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I’ve added an exception to Defender (Windows Security) for the Hosts file otherwise, as you’ve said, Defender flags it as a risk and actually restores the ‘original’ Hosts file if it detects that any MS domains have been added to it.

This behaviour suggests to me that MS were not being entirely truthful (fancy that!) by saying any changes to the Hosts file to block MS domains are ignored. The extensive hosts entries I have is supposed to allow Windows Update to work (Defender Updates still work) but I’ve found I needed to restore the ‘original’ Hosts file once a month (and temporarily disable StopUpdates10) to get the monthly Patch Tuesday updates.

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I think this “Spam” – “Ad” or as the Original Poster Attachment picture mentions “Suggested” is coming from the Settings at System > Notifications and actions > enabled Check Boxes, take at look at this Attachment / Screenshot, I have mine Un-Checked, and am not seeing spam, the “highlight what’s new and suggested” is probably where this Ad / Spam comes from:

Amazing Truths Revealed: Link to Simply Magnificent AskWoody Knowledge Bases

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