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I am visiting my father, he has Windows 10 on his computer. As a casual user and an old timer so its ok I guess that he chose the fee upgrade.
Meanwhile I went back to earlier OS and havent bothered much. When I came to visit him I got frequent on screen notifications of changes, one of the notifications appears to be advertising of third party software, in the Start menu.
Fething advertising within the core menus of an operating system. I don't care if these are recommended products, what are they doing in the start menu,

Yes? I don't understand your message.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Yes? I don't understand your message.

i am using a laptop and hit a hotkey that accidently posted my comment before I had completed writing it.

Oh I see. Well, as a power user/7o74L HAXXOR 1337 myself, I did make the free upgrade too. I barely ever launch Windows anyway, I spend basically all my time on ArchLinux. I don't see no problem with the recommended software. I'm sure you can replace it with your own software. And I don't need the start menu: Steam launch itself automatically at launch and Battle.net is on the desktop .

Reading the tittle, for a moment I tought you where referring to the value of their bank shares and my heart skipped a heartbeat. Microsoft is one of the ones where I have invested more money

 Galas wrote:
Reading the tittle, for a moment I tought you where referring to the value of their bank shares and my heart skipped a heartbeat. Microsoft is one of the ones where I have invested more money

I doubt M$ is going to stop being a good investment,but I don't like many of the reasons why.

I dislike windows 10 as well, keeping to my windows 7 copies for as long as I can. It might be free but they mess around too much for my taste.

I'm not really seeing the problem here, "free" software paid for by putting ads everywhere has been around for a long time. My paid-for copy of Windows 10 is still ad-free.

And really, this of all things is Microsoft hitting "new lows"? Out of all the horrible anti-competitive stuff they've done in the past, and been found guilty of in court?

 Peregrine wrote:
I'm not really seeing the problem here, "free" software paid for by putting ads everywhere has been around for a long time. My paid-for copy of Windows 10 is still ad-free.

And really, this of all things is Microsoft hitting "new lows"? Out of all the horrible anti-competitive stuff they've done in the past, and been found guilty of in court?

The past is forever ago!

This could also be built into the hardware rather than the OS. My cheapo Asus laptop has several adds that always pop up for the Asus cloud service and some social networking thing, and those are built into the motherboard rather than the Windows 10 running on the system.

I actually rather like Windows 10, but mostly only because it's hard to be worse than Windows 8 (or 9, which I can only assume was so dreadful Microsoft decided to scrap the whole number and just skip to ten )

 Peregrine wrote:
I'm not really seeing the problem here, "free" software paid for by putting ads everywhere has been around for a long time. My paid-for copy of Windows 10 is still ad-free.

Windows 10 has never been free, its an update offered free for an existing valid OS. So each copy is based on a paid license.
It would also spam people who have purchased Win 10 also.

 Peregrine wrote:

And really, this of all things is Microsoft hitting "new lows"? Out of all the horrible anti-competitive stuff they've done in the past, and been found guilty of in court?

Well they are new and definately lows. Its one thing for third party freeware like YouTube to run ads. MS operating systems are paid for, are sold at inflated prices and now despite being premium software are subject to advertising crap that we would normally see in free adware. Besides its an OS, that sort of crap is just not supposed to be there.

We can opt out, but the default is to receive spam, and as I have seen from opting out its not necessarily a done deal. MS is reluctant to accept 'no' as an answer.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LordofHats wrote:
This could also be built into the hardware rather than the OS. My cheapo Asus laptop has several adds that always pop up for the Asus cloud service and some social networking thing, and those are built into the motherboard rather than the Windows 10 running on the system.

Were that true it would not be starting just now, and at the time MS is sending splashscreens warning of 'improvements' to Win 10.

 LordofHats wrote:

I actually rather like Windows 10, but mostly only because it's hard to be worse than Windows 8 (or 9, which I can only assume was so dreadful Microsoft decided to scrap the whole number and just skip to ten )

I will be sticking with 7 for the forseeable future.

 Peregrine wrote:
I'm not really seeing the problem here, "free" software paid for by putting ads everywhere has been around for a long time. My paid-for copy of Windows 10 is still ad-free.

Yeah the horror. Having to pay in some form! If not money then the slight inconvenience of add(literally slight. I have been using free windows 10 from the launch and only noticed this feature after this thread! It's such a tiny thing that it's damn easy to miss)

Well it is Windows. When Linux gets easier to use and better software compatibility, I won't be buying anymore. Windows is a terrible OS, made tolerable only because its so standard literally everything runs on it save for some really cool graphics software that is built for Unix (that I don't use). I mean they make incremental upgrades every few years and then they charge you a couple hundred bucks for their borderline monopolized product, so excuse me for not being cheeky happy with the "pay for it and don't be cheap" line of reasoning.

Make gakky software and you're gonna have to deal with people being kind of sour about it

tneva82 wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
I'm not really seeing the problem here, "free" software paid for by putting ads everywhere has been around for a long time. My paid-for copy of Windows 10 is still ad-free.

Yeah the horror. Having to pay in some form! If not money then the slight inconvenience of add(literally slight. I have been using free windows 10 from the launch and only noticed this feature after this thread! It's such a tiny thing that it's damn easy to miss)

ITS NOT FREE SOFTWARE.

It was an update for existing Windows OS, only valid for some specific OS and invalidated the ID of the OS used to unlock the upgrade.

 Orlanth wrote:
ITS NOT FREE SOFTWARE.

It was an update for existing Windows OS, only valid for some specific OS and invalidated the ID of the OS used to unlock the upgrade.

It absolutely is free software. It is free software that was only offered to existing customers, but it's still a free upgrade to a new operating system that you'd normally have to pay for. You were not required to accept the free software, like you would with normal updates (security patches, etc).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Orlanth wrote:
It would also spam people who have purchased Win 10 also.

Currently running Windows 10, and I have zero ads. And no, I haven't opted out or anything, the ads are just not there.

Besides its an OS, that sort of crap is just not supposed to be there.

{citation needed}

You personally don't want to take the deal, but I don't see any reason why operating systems can't follow the "free, but with ads" business model.

 LordofHats wrote:
This could also be built into the hardware rather than the OS. My cheapo Asus laptop has several adds that always pop up for the Asus cloud service and some social networking thing, and those are built into the motherboard rather than the Windows 10 running on the system.

No they aren't. Except if they pop up before Windows does. Just install a clean copy of Windows and you'll see. Or better, some Linux.
They might come with your drivers though…

 LordofHats wrote:
Well it is Windows. When Linux gets easier to use and better software compatibility, I won't be buying anymore.

While software compatibility is still not perfect, I don't know when you last checked but I would say that ease of use is really there for Linux.

I have the free upgrade from 7 to 10 and I haven't ever seen an ad. If you mean the little text links on the lock screen, then you can disable those in less time than it took to write up your post. But I think you mean something else because those are really unobtrusive.

Why do you think that they are ads for MS built into the core OS, and not some run of the mill malware or similar?


Is it the suggested apps in the start menu? Because you can disable that, too. Of course, those aren't for third party apps, so again I am wondering why you don't think your dad just got some drive-by infection.

 LordofHats wrote:
This could also be built into the hardware rather than the OS. My cheapo Asus laptop has several adds that always pop up for the Asus cloud service and some social networking thing, and those are built into the motherboard rather than the Windows 10 running on the system.

I actually rather like Windows 10, but mostly only because it's hard to be worse than Windows 8 (or 9, which I can only assume was so dreadful Microsoft decided to scrap the whole number and just skip to ten )

My Lenovo does as well. I had a Toshiba laptop, that had 10 before it (or I should say the spacebar key and then it had an unfortunate accident where it magically lifted itself up, opened the door and then hurled itself against the wall of the house) died. It didn't have any ad attempts but the Lenovo does.

THANKS OBAMA!

Generally speaking there is no software installed on the hardware on your PC other than the bios needed to boot the computer. The only exception would be if you are running a thin client which is booting to an image onboard, but that wouldn't be Windows and this is rare.


Many if not all low-cost vendors install crapware on their machines, but these would be installed via a preloaded Windows image, not a hardware eeeprom like the BIOS - which has very, very limited space. Installing a fresh image of any OS would remove it, although there are usually much less extreme options for doing so.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
ITS NOT FREE SOFTWARE.

It was an update for existing Windows OS, only valid for some specific OS and invalidated the ID of the OS used to unlock the upgrade.

It absolutely is free software. It is free software that was only offered to existing customers, but it's still a free upgrade to a new operating system that you'd normally have to pay for. You were not required to accept the free software, like you would with normal updates (security patches, etc).

Well, it wasn't all that much of a choice. Microsoft made it so that the Windows 10 became very hard if not impossible to refuse for the average computer user. Like when the changed the red x for the update pop-up to mean accept instead of cancel...
Business methods like that mean Microsoft already couldn't sink any lower.


And Windows 10 still sucks. It is better than 8, but that is not much of an achievement. Windows has become way too intrusive. A good operating system is one you never realise is actually there and over which the user has full control. Windows 10 fails on both counts.

Anyways, no ads for me in Windows 10. Either I got a paid version when I bought my laptop or I messed with the operating system so much that I broke something important in the updating service.

 Peregrine wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Orlanth wrote:
It would also spam people who have purchased Win 10 also.

Currently running Windows 10, and I have zero ads. And no, I haven't opted out or anything, the ads are just not there.

Besides its an OS, that sort of crap is just not supposed to be there.

{citation needed}

You personally don't want to take the deal, but I don't see any reason why operating systems can't follow the "free, but with ads" business model.

They should have notified users of that before the update. It is fair to say "We will give you this operating system update for free but in return we will show you ads", but it is not fair to say "We will give you this operating system update for free." and then secretly sneak in ads later on. Again, Microsoft fails in basic communication.

 Ouze wrote:
Generally speaking there is no software installed on the hardware on your PC other than the bios needed to boot the computer. The only exception would be if you are running a thin client which is booting to an image onboard, but that wouldn't be Windows and this is rare.


Many if not all low-cost vendors install crapware on their machines, but these would be installed via a preloaded Windows image, not a hardware eeeprom like the BIOS - which has very, very limited space. Installing a fresh image of any OS would remove it, although there are usually much less extreme options for doing so.

What? I don't know what any of that means. Frazzled say you use big brain words all talky like. Frazzled Big Word translator and tech support sleeping in her first class at school. Help?

"You can probably remove it" is the takeaway (for you, maybe not for the OP).

Thanks!

 Ouze wrote:
Generally speaking there is no software installed on the hardware on your PC other than the bios needed to boot the computer.

[Annoying pedantic guy]Or rather, nowadays, the UEFI[/annoying pedantic guy]

I don't normally recommend installing software from mediafire links, but Classic Shell might be something worth looking at if he wants a generally less Chaotic Evil start menu.

At the risk of hijacking and turning this into a general tech-help thread, I've been getting disenfranchised with Windows for quite some time now, and would like to look into getting a different, non-mac operating system.
Anybody know some good how-to's and where-to's for Linux or something similar that can be used by someone who's not a programmer?
A manual for whatever operating system is recommended would be nice, too.

Note: I do really, really, really like my classic games like HoMM3, Starcraft 1 and PS:T, so being to do something to still be able to play those would be awesome!

You can run all those games through Wine/Crossover/Cider/etc.

Is there a particular reason for non-Mac?

(Also: HoMM3 FTW).

 Ouze wrote:
"You can probably remove it" is the takeaway (for you, maybe not for the OP).

I can remove it, (and promptly did) but my dad is 80. Came home one time to find the happy upgrade from 7 on his laptop, IIRC is autoupdated. I didn't mind that as he is an ultra-casual user as you might expect and it will have better support for him. I also have got hands-on time with Win 10 for myself.

Also the opting out of things might have to be repeated, some settings are 'reset to default' on updates. Noticed that before from Microsoft.

Also many here are missing the point, its not that there is an opt out, its the fact that they are going down that route to begin with. Advertising within an OS is here, once its standard the opt out might quietly disappear. We had a brief golden age between the time when cascade adds were properly dealt with by adware removers and when providers like YouTube started adding ads only everything. It is getting worse and opt outs of advertising are disappearing as people get resigned to its presence.

MS wanted to move most of its software to subscription base back around the turn of the century, the market said a form no to that. Now Adware is creeping into core software like OSes, furthermore we are seeing adware within softeware that is paid for as opposed to a feature of freeware as it was in the past. This cannot be good.

Bran Dawri wrote:
At the risk of hijacking and turning this into a general tech-help thread, I've been getting disenfranchised with Windows for quite some time now, and would like to look into getting a different, non-mac operating system.
Anybody know some good how-to's and where-to's for Linux or something similar that can be used by someone who's not a programmer?
A manual for whatever operating system is recommended would be nice, too.

Note: I do really, really, really like my classic games like HoMM3, Starcraft 1 and PS:T, so being to do something to still be able to play those would be awesome!

Add me on Skype/Discord/Whatever and I'll be happy to help you with stuff.
HoMM3 has a Linux version (that I can send you) but it's old and it doesn't include all the extra addon. I'm sure the full version with work fine on Wine, as does Starcraft 1. Not sure what PS:T is.

Meh it is no worse then my tablet refusing to charge unless I launch the itunes app for my computer....

Itunes is a virus in itself, between launching not 1 not 2 but 5 windows that lock my computer til I cancel them. To asking me multiple times.

want to update?
are you sure you do not want to update?
if you update you may lose all your info please back it up
are you sure you want to close this window
once closed if you would like to update click here.

THEN i am allowed to close itunes AFTER it says a ipad is plugged in are you sure you want to close itunes.