Bing Wallpaper app opens Harry Potter's chamber of ads

Microsoft has pumped ads into the Windows Start menu and pushed users through setup screens promoting its services. Now it's bringing advertising to the Windows desktop with a Harry Potter promotion in its Bing Wallpaper app. Users of Microsoft’s Bing Wallpaper app took to Reddit and Microsoft’s own Learn site, where users can …

[Jeroen Braamhaar]

First question ...

...why the fuck do you need a Bing App for your fscking wallpaper ?

Can we please shift to another timeline, this one is clearly broken ....

[DS999]

Re: First question ...

Everything has been getting worse since 9/10/2001. No wonder the machines used the late 90s as the "peak of human civilization" for the Matrix.

[Not Yb]

Re: First question ...

Oh boy... not 2001... The internet's been getting worse ever since Eternal September 1993, and probably well before.

[A. Coatsworth]

Re: First question ...

Simply put, the Mayans were right: the world did end on December 21, 2012. Some lucky bastards were problaby raptured and the rest of us have been living in hell since

[Someone Else]

Re: First question ...

Some lucky bastards were problaby raptured and the rest of us have been living in hell since

Only since December 21, 2012?

[ComputerSays_noAbsolutelyNo]

Re: First question ...

I would venture it's a default install by MEGASLOP

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: First question ...

Yep, the TVA have really buggered up on this one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: First question ...

What does the Tennessee Valley Authority have to do with this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: First question ...

"What does the Tennessee Valley Authority have to do with this?"

Oh they know what they did.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok - Linux has been out since 1991. Your choice at this point…

[Doctor Syntax]

My choice was SCO for some time before Linux matured as a daily driver. But, yes, that choice is there. It's news like this that makes me continually glad I don't have to use Windows.

[Steve Graham]

I've been using only Linux at home for over 20 years (the last WIndows I had was 2K). And, as it happens, I have a daily wallpaper changer. It's 20 lines of Perl. No ads.

[Not Yb]

KDE has a quite powerful wallpaper change app built-in these days. I've got it set to change one display background regularly, and leave the other two to have backgrounds I change when I feel like it. No ads on the default choices, other than the occasional photo credit on the bottom..

[stiine]

As Mr. Adams once said "...first against the wall when the revolution comes" and I think he was describing Microsoft.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

No he was describing the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation whose products famously had a serious of superficial design faultsand annoyances which meant you ignored their fundamental design flaws - totally different to Microsoft

[[e-mail]]

It's all about KPI

Employees at Google, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon and more have their bonuses determined by their key performance indicator counts. The bonus money encourages them to do things that annoy the end users. This is a great example of these companies selling investors rather than end users.

Here is another great example. Remember how you could watch a movie on Prime Video or Netfix and if you didn't want to watch the entire trailer you had to exit the movie. Next they changed it by adding a "Skip Trailer" button that takes you immediately to a list of things you want to watch. Now Amazon will just crank up the next movie that it thinks you might want to see without asking you first. This allows the developers to say they have increase user engagement - it's a KPI. But this behavior is also annoying.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It's all about KPI

Isn't that what is called "enshittification"?

[AMBxx]

There's an add-in for that!

Only works on Edge/Chrome but disables all the annoying auto-play and adverts. Automatically skips previously too.

[Cubbie Roo]

Boiling frogs complain, but they rarely jump. At this point Win users deserve everything they get, it's not like they haven't been warned.

Fire up the ads Satya!!

[David 132]

Suggestion (or should that be, A Modest Proposal) for Microsoft: the mouse cursor has remained unchanged in design for decades at this point. How much more exciting, vibrant, dynamic, and now would it be if the cursor changed every few seconds to a different sponsor's logo, or perhaps a continuously-animated advert? Think about it! Users' eyes naturally focus on the cursor! Talk about engagement! Why, this could be the most exciting and popular innovation in Windows since Clippy or Metro or those adverts in Windows 10 Freecell!

(note icon. Flame away.)

[AMBxx]

Windows 98 used to have an optional extension pack that let you change the mouse pointer to all sorts of things as part of the theme. Dinosaur, cat, anything you want.

Even before that in Win 3, I had a mouse icon that was chased around the screen by a cat.

[that one in the corner]

Neko!

[Rafael #872397]

The mouse cursor is too small. Make it as large as 50% of the screen, and that could work, as long as Microsoft disables any mouse gestures (including clicking) during the ad's duration.

[Philo T Farnsworth]

It's not a computer, it's a vending machine.

BTW, the "boiling frog" thing is a myth. It's been experimentally shown that when it gets too hot, the frog jumps out.

[Doctor Syntax]

"It's been experimentally shown that when it gets too hot, the frog jumps out."

So how do you account for the Windows users?

[The Dogs Meevonks]

Is it because a lot of windows users are called either Dunning or Kruger?

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Frogs aren't stupid?

[Someone Else]

Stockholm syndrome?

[news.bot.5543]

At work... it's not a choice...

[just4this]

Looks like I....

may have guessed correctly

https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2026/09/03/20267/#c_5321097

[JavaJester]

Comet Cursor Redux

Reminds me of the infamous Comet Cursor spyware.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are the product

We are the product…

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: You are the product

Not me, mate.

[Bebu sa Ware]

"a young boy who grows up with a hidden identity to an anti-transgender activist"

What ? Our Harry not too keen on our more diverse members of our community ?

Of course it is JKR to whom this observation refers. ;) … Rightly or wrongly.

Clearly a sentence and paragraph that got away from the writer — also a failing of mine. As her indoors repeats from her primary schooling: "a sentence <some grammatical stuff> and expresses a single coherent idea."

Whatever anyone thinks of JKR she can join Liberace, in crying all the way to the bank which is always some consolation. ;)

[blu3b3rry]

Wonder where it ends?

What next, the start menu button changing to an icon advertising things? Or perhaps they should just go the whole hog and have the start menu become an advertising banner 1 in every 5 times it's opened?

Just so you definitely know who owns the computer sat in front of you. FFS.

[JWLong]

>>Which - as an 'unreasonable man' - I shall not and will not ever do.<<

Well, that sounds reasonable.

/s