For me, it was worse. It happened every time I booted Windows because I only used it occasionally to play games.
After I select Windows in the boot menu, I'd spend like ten minutes waiting for Windows Update to complete. Then I have to click through a series of full screen ads and prompts to disable my privacy settings, which is getting increasingly difficult with all the dark patterns thrown in after every new release. It really shows a lack of respect for the user, taking my computer hostage while I resist their attempts to enable numerous privacy-invading settings that I declined over and over and over.
Over the years, this made me distrust Windows so much that I removed anything critical off of it. I removed my password manager, deleted my browsing data, and made sure to remove anything tied to an online account except Steam.
Then I finally had enough and moved my games over to Linux. So far, the experience is good and I'm glad that WINE is going through active improvements.
I also use Windows occasionally to launch a single game. My experience is the same as yours. All sorts of nags that have nothing to do with launching a single game. Every update either breaks stuff, changes settings, or adds ads somewhere.
I return to my main Mac after 2 months on the road, and nothing has changed. It boots right up, and might occasionally ask me if I want to install updates in the evening.
I bought another Mac recently. I didn't have to turn a bunch of things off. I wasn't tricked into accepting anything. By comparison it took me a whole day to update my Surface tablet and turn off all manners of growth hacking before I returned it.
If someone behaved like Microsoft does, I'd keep an eye on my drink when they're around.
In my limited experience with VMs, I have found that it's easier to skip it if you disconnect your internet before booting windows. It doesn't remove it completely, but it can save a few clicks. The page where they try to force you to connect a Windows account can be very hard to bypass sometimes with internet access.
Gaming wise, that's pretty dire. Proton is pretty nice on Linux, but still doesn't and probably never will support all of the titles that people might want to play. In addition, I doubt many companies out there want to test their game releases on multiple OSes and try to fix all of the bugs if they can even port the games, all for less than 4% increased profits.
I am hoping Steam Deck will change the Linux calculus. I play a lot of games on Linux now because of my deck! Haven’t turned on the Windows machine in a year or so.
Already has if you count the unknown portion (which are unrecognized Linux distros). The Steam Deck is perhaps using some funky user agent that isn't recognized according to this: https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide
And from the looks of things, Windows is on the decline. Linux and Mac are actually beginning to rise. Unknown are generally unknown Linux distros, and then there is ChromeOS and the recognized Linux distros. Together, that makes Linux about 13%
I recall that the IE market share graph behaves like a lagging indicator with significant momentum mass - alternative browsers were technically better and it took years for IE to bleed down the market share. Microsoft needs to be careful with Windows as losing market share is hard to stop/reverse.
According to that, Windows' world wide market share is now under 70%. It lost 6% in the past few months starting in December.
A lot of this I find have to do with Valve pushing for Linux gaming. And there is also ChromeOS too (which is Linux). Then there is the unknown portion (which are mostly unrecognized Linux distros). That altogether makes Linux about 13%.
Really, it's the end of an era were Windows is actually relevant for the majority of PC gaming. And with people hating Windows more these days, they are weighing their options from the looks of it.
Well I'm not anymore. Didn't think I would ever leave windows, been using it since 3.1 but sometime in middle of windows 10 I finally got fed up and set up dual boot Linux and some months later found myself not having booted the windows side at all. My current laptop (second hand) doesn't have windows on it at all except the sticker that I should probably peel off.
I haven't touched windows 11 at all beyond some idle poking of a display computer at Costco.
Many apps have become user hostile in the past years, including social media and even our software-driven vehicles...
It's a very stressful thing to deal with, and congress does nothing to stop it because they're too busy trading stock investment info for insider profit...
We are not totally powerless though, hacking and warez are on the rise again, lots of people are declining updates, and even returning to older software versions, and nothing has ever stopped us from creating a good old-fashioned picket line in front of Microsoft HQ, or any other predatory software making company for that matter.
I don't see why it's "not acceptable" at all. Why shouldn't they treat users this way? They can make more money with all these annoyances, and the people who hate it are just going to complain on internet forums and keep using Windows anyway. Seems like a good business strategy to me. Any time a business is in a position where they can abuse their customers endlessly and the customers will refuse to leave, it would be a breach of fiduciary duty not to abuse them for more profit.
An easily accessible option of “never” is probably more reckless. My MIL would always pick never and at the same time expect that her PC is fully protected.
That said there should be a setting for savvy users or enterprises to disable updates.
The ads typically shown this way rarely related to security. It's usually something that Microsoft wants the user to "agree" to. It's basically physiological coercion.
I wish Apple was actually good in that regard. I ended up uninstalling Apple Stocks app from my Mac and iPhone because of all the terrible ads. The ads I saw were even worse than this:
If the worst problem you have is ads in your stocks app, it sounds like Apple is still coming out way ahead. I agree that they're squandering brand value for what must be a very marginal gain though
> it sounds like Apple is still coming out way ahead
I disagree for three reasons:
1. Apple Ads are incessant about their own services. Why is (or was?) not having iCloud set up showing up as a permanent notification badge over Settings? It was a while ago, but I remember I subscribed just to shut iOS up. It worked for Apple I guess, but only in a shortsighted way.
2. Ads are big business. Microsoft didn't start with shameless ads, and I don't think Apple would stop at current ad levels. They have to show growth quarter after quarter, so in all likelihood, like we have seen with other companies, it's only gonna get worse. I would love to be proven wrong, but I would also be surprised if I do.
3. The gap between "no ad" and "low ad" feels much bigger the gap between "low ad" and "more ad". Just replace Apple and Microsoft with Netflix and imagine how we would feel if Netflix started showing some—not too many and not too outrageous—ads. For me at least, it moves the service from the "no ad" category to the "with ad" category, and I hate the latter category. So at least in my view, the gap between Apple and Microsoft in this regard is not "way ahead", it is "slightly ahead and getting closer". So while I would be happy to spend an extra X$ for a "no ad" product compared to a "with ad" product, I wouldn't feel the same about a "low ad" product. The Apple premium makes much less sense now, and I am not sure if I am gonna go with Apple for my next phone or computer purchase.
What the actual f? Good thing I don't live in a very high ARPU area. That insulates you from a surprising amount of crazy stuff. I mean, just not living in US/UK will get you quite far.
I saw this coming a few months ago and had the same reaction.
I was already in the market for a new PC. I'm just finalizing what version of Linux I want to run for my dev work and then I'm going to offload my Adobe work onto a Mac Mini and finally get rid of Windows once and for all.
Outside is boring and, compared to pc gaming, expensive. You have to drive to get anywhere interesting (expensive), there are parking and entrance and camping fees, tourists, and the view is mostly the same as the last twelve times.
Sports leagues are expensive, time consuming, and prone to serious injuries you’ll be feeling for decades (and expensive too).
And then there’s the short and long term costs associated with long term exposure to the sun.
Granted, I’m cherry picking negatives. But by that same token, so is equivocating PC gaming with Candy Crush.
I was about the say the same. Moved out of the US five years ago. I can hop on bike and be at a national forest in 10 minutes, taking nothing but dedicated bike roads.
This kinda of user-hostile malware is very frustrating, as many of platforms Microsoft creates I find quite pleasent technically. However some small hoard of product managers and growth engineers chasing their metrics are ruining Windows.
With eye tracking they will be able to determine your interest level to allow additional targeted advertising of things that you eye lingers on. If you saw an alcohol ad and lingered on it because you're a recovering alcoholic they'll know to really ramp up the ads on that since they've identified you as having a weakness to them. Maybe they'll even use iris scans or databases of eye movement patterns to identify you as an individual for even better user tracking.
What grinds my gears is the scheduled waking from sleep to check for updates. And then it often doesn't go back to sleep afterwards for some reason.
Oh! And if you go into the task scheduler to hunt down the half dozen different places this function is called from, they just get turned back on with the next update.
I actually set up a scheduled task that runs every 5 minutes (maybe overkill, but I didn't know with what frequency they get reenabled) to make sure any task that can wake my computer from sleep is turned off.
I got so tired of Windows turning on my computer in the middle of the night, checking for updates (but never actually applying any) to apply updates, and then leaving it on all night afterwards, like WTF.
Why stop there? Maybe the next version of Teams, will have commercial breaks during your daily stand-up? ... Microsoft is making 2023 the year of the Linux Desktop. :-)
In Settings>System>Notifications> go to the bottom and expand the last row. In it there's an option to Show you ways to improve something something. Uncheck that.
This only happens when Windows has a major updaye, usually overnight if you leave your PC on. On the next startup you're always greeted with a full screen overview of new features, setup, etc.
Perhaps require acknowledging an ad to open or save a document? With full OS integration and demonstrated willingness to expose any user to advertising, the possibilities are numerous.
I have never seen them either, i was surprised to hear people talking about them on windows 10. I have a pretty aggressive hosts file blocking stuff, plus ran some supposedly telemetry removing commands in the past, so I guess that must be it.
This is not a small advert in a small corner of the start menu. These are full-screen adverts that interrupt your use of the computer until you click.
What on Earth could they possibly do now to top that ?