Microsoft slides ads into Windows Insiders' File Explorer Microsoft appears to be experimenting with more adverts in Windows 11 after eagle-eyed Insider users spotted helpful hints turning up in File Explorer. Windows Insider Florian posted a screenshot of the ads, and other unpaid testers said they noticed similar hints lurking in the Dev Channel build, with one ad suggesting users …
Thank you for your purchase of high quality Microsoft products.
...and now a word from our sponsor... More Microsoft products you don't own, but probably should! You may as well buy them because we're going to harangue you until you do. Then we're going to convince you to go to a monthly subscription model to make us even more oodles of cash.
Microsoft. Because we care about increased profit margins... Oops, I mean we care about the contents of your bank account. No, sorry, got that wrong again. We care about you. Yeah, that's it.
Imagine being told you are ugly, you need a facelift to freshen up. Do not be afraid of the surgery etc. Every 7 years or so. Well every time I am forced to alter(not necessarily upgrade) their OS, I get angry. I am happy being who I am, and an interface I know well. Making matters worse, is I use mobile phone connectivity ONLY, in the backcountry, where there is no reception sometimes. At at 4.30 PM, my internet drops out because the feeble telco has skimped somewhere.
I wait patiently for the EU to tell MS they are not allowed to hoover my disk drive and keyword index so they can sell sales leads to every Tom Dick and Harry. It is bad form to read your sisters diary, but hey now that legal if its online and you are some big company.
The business has 1000's of savory legal cases, murders, things involving children, and done a global replace, inserting politicians names and company directors for a litany of egregious crimes. Yet somehow the plod are not knocking on their doors. If we get hacked, at least we find out early!
how about that TV screen in "Idiocracy" in which 3/4 of the screen was covered with ads and only the middle 25% or so had actual content you WANTED to see.
Cue Micros~1 "New WIndows" in late 2022 or 2023, using up that "unused" screen space and slowly encroaching onto your desktop until the amount of screen space available for actually USING the thing is only a fraction of the size of the monitor. "I'll need to upgrade my monitor to get work done now".
(Cycle of evil continues until it's like IDIOCRACY)
That and frogs being slowly boiled
It's tempting. Especially as I've been waiting over 3 months for a new PC to arrive. Well, one that matches what I spec'd and isn't DOA. No dear vendor, a shingled drive isn't an acceptable substitute for the HDs I ordered.
But it was getting painful enough wrestling with Win10 telemetry. MS seems determined to frustrate PiHoling by using stuff like timeouts if it's spyware doesn't get a response from the mothership.
Oh for a Windows that would allow easy mode configurations and a bare bones OS. Still, if my new games/dirty box ever arrives, it should have 64GB memory, and might meet the minimum for Win12.
Funnily enough, I've been using Windows 7 at work (that's banks for you) and I'm a little shocked at how nice it is to use. No bloatware, no ads, a more sensible file explorer... Even with my company's restrictions, I can customize my machine more than I could the consumer Windows OS I have at home. (I mainly use Linux, but I was doing .Net development for a bit and needed a Windows setup as well.) Change is not progress, I guess.
I'd have thought MS would have got better at optimisation, and the OS footprint shrinking.
The ONLY thing Micros~1 gets better at is figuring out ways to slurp, and sell what they get. You expect actual technical prowess from what is, and basically has always been, a marketing company? Whatever it is you're smoking, I want some!
When windows 11 is clearly the next giant F up in a long series of humiliating walk backs going back to what, Windows Millennium Edition? Windows 3.0?
The only difference is they skipped an number, so the whole odd/even thing is flipped. Windows 11-8-vista-XP(home)-and ME vs Windows 98, 2000, XP Pro, 7, and 10. So since y2k they are stuck at 50% rate of humiliating failure.
They are consistent though right?
People will rightfully howl about this, and there will either be a walkback or yet another registry key to set to turn the bleeping ads off, because like the failed vista and 8 rollouts, there are very big accounts that will tell their M$ rep to shove it and skip the release cycle until/unless it is fixed.
What probably isn't going to happen is a mass of users jumping ship for another OS. Because people don't use windows to do their job. They use software. They will use the version of windows that interferes the least with them using that software to do their job, but most businesses are still locked into windows.
Stay calm and just keep complaining about the problems in 11. In the mean time stay on an LTS build and just wait them out. They need our money more than I need a new operating system, so they need to come to the table with something I want, not something I hate.
> They need our money more than I need a new operating system
Given (AFAIK) they don't charge for Windows anymore, they won't make any money anyway, except by stuffing ads down your throat and selling what you do, how and how often. Besides, generally speaking it's not up to you to decide which Windows you'll use, else most people would probably still be using WinXP or Win7. Microsoft decides, and users do as they're told, willingly or not (if you don't believe me, try buying a new computer with Win7).
As for the big accounts, they get a free pass to disable ads, because they are worth it. Which isn't true for the average Joe.
My point is, just like bleating won't save the sheep from being fleeced, complaining won't prevent Microsoft from fleecing you either. The only way to prevent this is to flee, and this isn't possible for everyone. Which is why Microsoft doesn't really care if the users are bleating, they'll get fleeced anyway.
"Given (AFAIK) they don't charge for Windows anymore"
This is what's so galling - you can absolutely still buy a Windows installation/licence (OEM "one device for life" or Retail). You still end up with an advertising platform.
And yeah, to your point, the big accounts are using Enterprise editions, which shouldn't have all the ad platform stuff bolted on. You'd think the same should apply to the Professional editions, but you'd be sorely disappointed.
> Enterprise editions, Professional editions
Yeah well, when I last used Windows (Win7), "Professional" was the full-fat versions for people who meant business.
With the help of inflation, "Professional" became "Home De Luxe", and they brought in the additional "Enterprise" version. Obviously costing way more than the already expensive "Professional" one, I guess...
And I bet in a couple years, serious users will have to opt for the "Corporation" version (costing several times the price of "Enterprise") if they want to retain some control over their work computers...
It's called marketing.
I would not consider Windows 3.0 an "F-up". I thought it was BRILLIANT at the time.
Remember how Windows 2.x and even the 386 version were all 2D FLATTY with CGA compatible colors? Well 3.0 fixed this with a 3D Skeuomorphic appearance and IT SOLD LIKE CRAZY, because of the 3D SKEUOMORPHIC APPEARANCE. And solitaire. (good luck finding that in any "modern" version of Windows, unless you like ad-ware or paying for it. Worthy of mention, Aisle Riot on Linux).
So even though ME and Vista were true "F-ups" you have to admit that everything ELSE showed actual improvements worth having the upgrade for... even XP (they focused on game compatibility, which mostly worked).
What I do not understand is how you could POSSIBLY include Win-10-nic in your iist of NON-failures.
I'm definitely close to enough is enough.
From everything I've read and seen so far, I have no temptations to even try out Windows 11, let alone switch to it.
I have little choice for work, as it's a company provided and managed system, but for personal use...
I've been evaluating what do I actually run on my personal rig that is genuinely Windows only? It's not actually a lot these days, just a few games that don't have native Linux versions and don't run under Proton.
Most other things either have native Linux versions, work fine under Wine/Proton, or have some Linux equivalent that I could switch to.
I think I'll go dual boot for a while, I've done this in the past with Windows 7 and Linux, so I think I'll probably go down that route again, at least initially, and just keep the Win 10 env as-is for the few Windows only games I have, and have Linux as the primary OS.
You're forgetting the golden rule of purchasing
"No one gets fired for buying m$"
plus they have office in the background (whatever version.... and whether it can read a previous version's files*)
So businesses will carry on buying windows regardless of consumer demand, and the majority of consumers will buy windows because thats all they know and all they are offered
*just had to round trip some old office files via libre office and back to office again... FFS
> businesses will carry on buying windows regardless of consumer demand
Consumer demand is irrelevant, what counts is the money they have spent in in-house developments which would need to be redone from scratch if they switched to anything else.
Imagine having to redo from scratch the whole fragile and utterly complex back office structure, including changing the servers it runs on, retrain the users, redo connections with suppliers, and so on. Nobody would ever dare suggest it, and the bean counters would definitely never greenlight it, given it's an awful lot of money thrown out of the window(s) just to make a commercially pointless statement.
TL;DR: Once Windows, always Windows, unless you have lot of money to waste.
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Those are political decisions, and have little to do with productivity or budget. I'd say they are experiments in feasibility if they didn't depend so much on political factors.
I definitely would love for those cities to start/keep using open source software, if only because this would inject some money, and potentially trigger some development projects which else would never happen in the heavily programmer/system administrator-centric land of Linux.
Imagine having to redo from scratch the whole fragile and utterly complex back office structure
it has been done before (at a significant cost savings, I might add)
Use cases differ. and I guess making guitar strings isn't the most computer-heavy business out there.
Think airline company, needing not only to manage its own stuff and connect to all the hundreds of branch offices worldwide, but also connect seamlessly to foreign systems on each and every airport, and most likely to some central database(s) of flight regulation. I'm just taking them as an example of a very complex IT infrastructure: No airline would willingly redo its IT infrastructure from scratch unless forced to, it would be absolutely ruinous and very risky.
...that led me to stop using Microsoft products wherever possible. I bought the operating system, Microsoft. I already paid you. Having someone else pay you so you can advertise their shit at me is called "double dipping" and it's bullshit of the highest order.
I don't mind google advertising at me. I don't pay for their services. I get that that's the deal. Windows, however, you expect me to pay for. ...and since I already have a perfectly good operating system that I don't have to pay for, you're on a bit of a hiding to nothing.
They're actively sabotaging their own core revenue with this.
Enterprise and business customers won't stand for "features" which hamper employee productivity or open security risks and if they get discouraged enough Google is waiting right there to snap them up, and you bet Amazon will be considering ways to run Desktops in the Cloud for business with the appropriate "dumb terminal" approach
Yes, they do pay extra. Rather a LOT extra for Windows 10 enterprise, which also lets you turn off telemetry outside of 'security issues', whatever those are, and also divert them to an on-prem reporting server instead of The Cloud.
Although MS is pushing their Office 264 product as a way of pushing those who are still using Exchange on prem up there as well...
You can turn off telemetry yourself, without even adjusting windows settings.
oh yeah, like it's OUR fault for NOT "turning it off" using an external piece of hardware with a hackish configuration on it... because "they" fixed it so you cannot merely edit the windows hosts file. (even THAT is really too much for an end user to HAVE to do to turn this crap OFF)
We should not even have to CONSIDER doing this in the FIRST place... (it's on THAT level of WRONG)
Soo.. What do people think is the best Linux distro for gaming at the moment? For me, it would seem the right time to do that, but I have a pretty large Steam collection. I've also been thinking of just switching to console & using a PS5 instead. Sony's browser is rather sucky though, and can't even display a pdf on a PS4.
So,... they will be paying me to watch the ads then? Every time an ad pops up in the file explorer they will be transferring new and fresh funds into my account. I will be using that explorer, sure thing.
But, they can not have it both ways; pay for the OS and force ads onto the user. They gotta pay the viewer if they want to pilfer ads and the operating system cannot cost anything anymore.
> But, they can not have it both ways; pay for the OS and force ads onto the user.
Who says they will? The Windows Suckerz Insiders program is simply to test that the technology works. The "pay nothing" versus "pay a subscription" for Windows comes later.
>But, they can not have it both ways; pay for the OS and force ads onto the user.
Cable TV and its descendants have, I’m afraid, proved that assertion incorrect. People have shown that they will tolerate advertising in a product they’re paying for, so Microsoft aren’t the first.
Bastards. A pox on the lot of ‘em.
> your router/pi-hole. It's not that hard.
Feel free to come by explain it to my old aunt...
What seems simple to geeks working in IT is definitely not simple for the rest, the vast majority of the population. What would you do if told to perform something as "simple" as an appendectomy (to your spouse/child)? Don't tell me you can't do something as simple as an appendectomy!... What, you don't even have a sterile operating room?
I did that for the wife...
You would not believe the grief I get because she can't click on ads that result from a Google search - it's like scrolling the screen down a bit is a world ending problem! Sadly (for her) the PiHole stays so we don't get ads on the "Smart" TV and various news articles just have gaps rather than pop up video adverts.
How effective is this pi hole box?
The ad block detectors on All4 and the Dave channels are pretty hardcore now and just force their ads through them.
I'm assuming this gizmo blocks them in the routing, so its external to the browser / "smart" tv .
I'm surprised a website cant detect that the content started flowing 2 minutes earlier than it should have.
> Hi Mum,
All right, your mum is saved. Now what about those unlucky few moms who didn't have the chance to sire a computer geek?
Guys, guys, there is a lot of people on this planet, and not all are like you. Is this so difficult to understand? What is simple and obvious for you, isn't a solution for the vast majority of people out there.
Even if they sold already configured plug & play network ad blocker solutions in every supermarket, most people wouldn't use them, simply because they would never dare touch those strange cables behind the cupboard for fear they might break something.
Don't you like having ads on top of your operating adware system? Clearly, the targeted ads are failing because you turned off all those tracking services that totally create a better user experience, so turn them on. Also, let big MS brother watch your every move to better serve you better ads.
I wonder how long until they add some sort of subliminal hypno suggestion with "You love ads, you love not owning any software, you love paying for services you don't use or need".
That crap already happend a decade ago, and it was nudges in peoples social media feeds. Apple and the streaming services trying to sell Millennials the idea that it was better to rent everything. We went from rip/mic/burn to 5-25$ month per service back to people owning stacks of vinyl. People can do the math, and long term, count on them looking to their own interests.
I think for the first time in years, I saw an ad for something I might want to buy. A tactical hoody! Not sure what's tactical about it, but lots of pockets is handy if I'm out with my camera(s).
Also not sure if that means ad profiling is getting better, or my blocking is getting worse. Here on el Reg, it seems like Ionos is the only advertiser google has because it's the only ad they show. But for me, that's the problem. 99% of the time the ad is irrelevant, and the same ads are shown over and over again. Hardly suprising people turn to ad blockers.
Well, even Vultures need to eat. Oh, Ionos ad. Again.
But it's a bit of an experiment to see just how bad the 'net looks as a typical user. YT is especially painful with Deliveroo ads <2m apart. Obviously that's a demonstration of Alphabet's marketing genius because there's also regular pop-ups wanting me to pay for their 'premium' YT service. It's not a pleasant experience, although I guess it sets a cost or value for ads and ad blocking.
On a pedantic level, I am somewhat displeased with the use of the ! symbol.
Unless I am mistaken, the ISO definition of that symbol is:
Title/Meaning/Referent: General warning sign
Function/description: To signify a general warning
Hazard: Risk to people specified by the supplementary sign
Apart from the general hazards expected when using Microsoft software, I don't think that recommending new products is a reasonable use of a caution warning.
You usually see that symbol in user manuals telling idiots to "read the manual", "take reasonable precautions not to electrocute your genitals" or "please do not microwave your animals".
Are people surprised this is a possible direction for the free Windows software?
On a side note I just put Debian 11 (non-free) on a laptop given to me and it installed like a dream. I've also got all the software I need on it. After using Linux (mainly server) for over 20 years I have never known such things. A few tweaks to the UI and it may be time to move my desktop.
The deliberate decision was to incorporate the code into File Explorer.
I'll bet that code will remain, just waiting for msft to one day 'accidentally' enable it again.
One wonders how invasive that code really is? Does it monitor my computer and file system usage? if it sees me with a large amount of fresh raw photo images, will I be pummeled with ads for Adobe products? Does it notice that I cache local copies of monthly security and bug fix distributions? will it them 'accidentally' turn on the local sharing of msft updates?
Can of worms here........
Re "The deliberate decision was to incorporate the code into File Explorer."
It may not have been a deliberate decision if the code in question is in a library that explorer uses. It may be that they called some code to do something, and forgot to set a parameter to turn the ad off. I'm not excusing it, just trying to explain a potential reason it is there..
Personally, I don't like the fact there is advertising in Windows. For instance, I went through a phase of seeing a lot of ads for Office 365. I have a subscription through work that, thanks to working from home, I have to use on my PC at home. I don't need to purchase a personal subscription. Don't even *like* the suite.
It may not have been a deliberate decision if the code in question is in a library that explorer uses.
Even if I accept that someone has made a decision to add the ad-slinging functionality to a core library, or to make one of those core libraries depend on the ad-slinging library. All you've done is shift that decision away by one or two degrees. The issue is that these types of libraries should be opt-in type, not opt-out.
> It may be that they called some code to do something, and forgot to set a parameter to turn the ad off.
That's a really desperately attempt to find an excuse... "I accidentally programmed an ad to appear, and accidentally forgot to turn it off, honestly!"...
What really happened is they tried out that new feature (which was foreseeable and thus expected), it created too much ruckus, so they backpedaled for the time being. It will definitely reappear at some point, because that's the way Microsoft goes: Windows owns all this valuable screen real estate, and they won't rest till they monetize it all. People have ads all over their smartphones, so why should their computers be free of them?
Opened a word doc at work today and it had two yellow the banners. The first was the common warning about being in protected view and that I had to click to enable editing.
That was expected.
The second told me about the lovely Employee Benefit of getting a 30% discount on Microsoft 365 for my personal use!
Still more expensive than LibreOffice.
A few years ago when Windows 10 was first released* I read many stories about the telemetry, the data collection and all the 'phoning home' that it was going to be doing. I decided then I wasn't going to have Windows 10 at home. I don't and I won't. I have to use it at work and while initially, it was quite frugal with resources and responsive to use it has descended into a steaming great pile of sh1t. It's licensed spyware and Micros~1 are doing exactly what Google have been doing for years. Collecting every bit of data they can about you and monetise it any and every way they can** Edge is just Chrome in a cheap frock.
*Released in as much as it was forced on most.
**It's MY tinfoil and if I want to make it into a hat, I will :)
" "This was an experimental banner that was not intended to be published externally and was turned off.""
Which literally means it will be published later time and it's *turned off* *for now*. Notice term "turned off". Specifially *not* "removed".
I'll bet it's a simple undocumented registry value which turns it on again and that will be done in any forced update MS chooses in the near future.
Because, why not? Can *you* ditch your Windows overboard? Monopoly can do what it wants, literally.
I hate advertising. I don't expect it baked into an OS that I pay for.
This crap really makes me angry. Get to a point where you have a product that is worthy of buying and then start pan-handling from advertisers and give an option to either get a free version of Windows with ads or paid with no crap baked in.
Mine was 2017. Just installed Wine 7 (it was actually quite painless, much better than the aborted attempt to get Wine 4 up and running). Now, I'm trying to get the Arturia V Collection installed (or at least, some of it anyway), and if/when that works, I'll happily remove the Win10 partitions that came with the computer.
Once I can be arsed to get up and actually do that, of course...
Perhaps we need to boycott the advertisers.
Imagine if everyone decided to NOT buy something because they saw it advertised? The whole house-of-cards business model would crumble and people might actually start paying for the services they use directly instead of through a leeching layer.
About as much chance of that as the incumbent in the Kremlin apologising to Ukraine and compensating all its people, but it doesn't stop you wishing it could happen.
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