Microsoft stoops to new low with ads in Windows 11, as PC Manager tool suggests your system needs ‘repairing’ if you don’t use Bing

Reclaim your PC. Make it yours once more. Join the penguins.

Idk what I can say about this except "lol"

Microsoft needs to be broken up.

Any company that can be so blatantly anti consumer and still makes boatloads of money is obviously abusing its dominant position on the market.

Hey, my weekly reminder to tell you that I, a Windows 11 user on five computers without any special tweaks, have never seen a single one of those ads people keep talking about on Lemmy.

When I made this, I did not expect I'd use it much. Then...Windows 11.

This time the software giant is trying out having PC Manager suggest that you 'repair' your system by reverting to Microsoft's default search engine, Bing.

These are sound like things that are just begging European union to milk out some cash from Microsoft through fines.

Turned on my computer yesterday and this popped up. No option to decline. I had to go into the registry last week get all traces of OneDrive out. It's worse than just ads; it's also forcing its other products. Like: Bitch, I'm just here for your OS. Fuck off with all your neediness.

"Let's finish setting up your PC Your PC needs to be backed up and connected to a few more Microsoft services to help you work more easily and securely acrossall your devices.

Back up your files with OneDrive cloud storage Have peace of mind knowing they're backed up and available acrossyour devices

Enhance your web browsing experience Restore Microsoft recommended browser settings.

Achieve more with a Microsoft 365 subscription Get premium Microsoft 365 apps, 1 TB of cloud storage to back up files and photos, and more

Back up your phone to your PC Access your phone's photos, texts, and more, right on your PC.

Sign in quickly with Windows Hello Securely unlock your device with a touch or a smile.

Remind me in 3 days or Continue"

Windows: System needs repairing Me: proceeds to install linux mint

They about to find out the only reason people don't use Linux is because Windows is 'convenient.'

Pathetic.

Here's a tool to permanently fix your windows installation from all this BS.

ᶠᵘˡˡ ᵈᶦˢᶜˡᵒˢᵘʳᵉ ⁻ ᶦᵗ‘ˢ ᵃⁿ ᶦⁿˢᵗᵃˡˡᵃᵗᶦᵒⁿ ᵍᵘᶦᵈᵉ ᵗᵒ ᴸᶦⁿᵘˣ ᴹᶦⁿᵗ

My grandma call me saying she's sick of Widows and its shenanigans and asked me to install gentoo on her machine next time I come around. Gonna be a fun weekend.

I just switched all my systems over to mint. I used to think Linux was the "just at work" environment. But now I'm flipping it. I'm sick of Windows, I know it's less hassle but my digital well-being needs a break from ads.

I just rolled back my Win 11 to Win 10 only to use temporarily while I test some other distros to see which one(s) I like.

Shout out to Ventoy, my new favorite usb utility.

"[...] switching the default search engine back to Bing [...] from Google Search (or whatever other browser is set as default)."

Google is a Browser now, neat. And somehow it's relevant in a post about search engines.

"Microsoft Edge, the default browser pre-installed on Windows machines, and Bing Search aren't bad products by any means - they are solid alternatives to Google's own Chrome and Search."

They may be good compared to Chrome and now also Google. But even rotten eggs are better than literal shit, at least for most people.

Stockholm Syndrome is the only explanation I can come up with at this point.

these clickbait anti microsoft ads weren't amusing in the late 90s on slashdot and they aren't amusing now.

I fully switched to Fedora for a week now and it felt like a fresh air

And that's why I switched to Linux.

I use a mixture of Linux and Windows 10 LTSC on my PCs/servers/VMs. I will be the first to admit that Windows does sometimes make sense to use. My desktop PC and my dev environment are both Windows 10.

That being said, what is the advantage in using Windows 11 over 10? As far as I can tell, it's worse in every way. Built-in ads, a crappier UI, forced obsolescence with TPM requirements, and "feature" bloat that nobody asked for.

10 was a clear improvement over 8, but 11 just seems all-around worse.

Damn I'm somewhat indifferent to windows as my main PC os, mostly because I've got all my weird music hardware and a couple of decades worth of plugins working nicely. But this shit is getting annoying, so...

I have extensive experience with Linux on servers and I keep umming and ahhing about switching to it as my main desktop OS—let's see if anyone here is in the venn diagram that can answer this:

I'm a software engineer, all of that is cool, but I'm also pretty into music production

I would need to run Ableton with a Push 3 and Maschine with my M+. I've got simpler controllers like a beatstep pro, but I'm expecting those to be fine. And then would I be able to use my expert sleepers modular interfaces properly? Obviously I want this all with low latency.

After hardware I've got all sorts of vsts across tens of companies, some need my ilok key, I've got my Steinberg stuff too, but they've moved to online licensing finally.

Alternatives to the software are great (I know I can use bitwig natively, for example), but it's a non starter unless I can run it all, I've got years of projects that I would want to be able to open and start messing with the music, rather than spending most of my time messing with the software and losing what inspiration made me open the software in the first place

From someone with experience in this area, how viable is this?

Imagine you have a computer that’s been compromised by malware. What do you think the search engine will be set to? Not Google, not Bing, probably some third party one that has ads and malware. Changing that to Bing would technically qualify as a repair.

They could easily improve this by just adding a list of common reputable search engines, and adding those to an allow list.

Please microsoft, become the ad platform you're destined to become and give users a reason to move to linux.

Anti Commercial-AI license

So much of this shit apparently going on 11 but I've never seen any of these changes on mine.

Is this only for US or?

That's because they've integrated it into the start menu. Evil, yes. But technically correct.

Isn't this exactly what got them broken up last time?

How is this not fraud?

It's a simple question. They are deliberately misleading and lying to customers for unlawful corporate gain.

Windows, WHY???

I fought with Broadcom's shitty website for hours, but finally have Workstation Pro, in which I will test my workflows in Linux.

Games and Lightroom will be a challenge, but I'm going to avoid Win11 at all costs.

Lol

It's Bingin' time!

Lol, I don't even use Windows... heh !!!