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Microsoft plugging more ads into Windows 11 Start Menu

theregister.com

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Re: Microsoft plugging more ads into Windows 11 Start Menu

#401

Post by snvzz »

theodric wrote: post #351
snvzz wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arch Linux. Great community and excellent documentation wiki that'll hold your hand every step of the way.

Install Arch, get everything working, and DO NOT install updates. I've never had another distro that would randomly render itself unbootable or break core functionality with such frequency with the simple weekly application of updates. Really distressing.

Wow.

I have used Arch as my main system for 6 years now (was Gentoo before) and never had anything of the sort.

How does this even happen?

Re: Microsoft plugging more ads into Windows 11 Start Menu

#402

Post by JohnFen »

com2kid wrote: post #311
Nextgrid wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be surprised if some shitty Bluetooth headphones send a "play" command on connection, which then opens the default music player if no others are running, and by default the Music app has some Apple Music stuff (though as you say it can be disabled). While there should ideally be a toggle in the OS to be able to ignore play commands completely from bluetooth devices (to deal with such defective ones), but I…

> I wouldn't be surprised if some shitty Bluetooth headphones send a "play" command on connection, Bose's highest end headphones. > While there should ideally be a toggle in the OS to be able to ignore play commands completely from bluetooth devices (to deal with such defective ones), but I don't see it as outright malicious unlike putting spam in the start menul Windows does the "proper" thing here and starts playin…

> at least is an attempt to follow the standard

There's a standard that blesses automatically running a media application when headphones are connected?

Unless it can be disabled, that behavior is beyond obnoxious.

Re: Microsoft plugging more ads into Windows 11 Start Menu

#403

Post by snvzz »

Zak wrote: post #397
snvzz wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arch Linux. Great community and excellent documentation wiki that'll hold your hand every step of the way.

Arch Linux is a great choice for someone who wants to know Linux . I am writing this comment from Arch Linux. Arch Linux is not a great choice for someone who just wants to use Linux. There's a lot of learning just to install it, while less expert-oriented distributions can have a system up and running in 20 minutes with very little expertise on the part of the user.

Serious question here: Why would someone NOT want to know Linux?

When ignoring the short term, what's the advantage, if any, of using a system without mastering it?

Re: Microsoft plugging more ads into Windows 11 Start Menu

#404

Post by tmtvl »

mypornaccount wrote: post #121
pengaru wrote: post #96

MS Windows is the daytime television of operating systems: If you're still using it in 2023 you have only yourself to blame. It's not like there aren't better options at your disposal...

I just want an OS where; out of the box, I can play any game made in the last 20 years, change my mouse scroll speed, or set my background to a solid color.

I don't think any OS comes with all games made the last 20 years out of the box. Nor one which supports any game made the last 20 years.

But yeah, mouse scroll speed is an excellent example of the harm GNOME does to GNU/Linux adoption.

Re: Microsoft plugging more ads into Windows 11 Start Menu

#405

Post by pedalpete »

dotty- wrote: post #134
irrational wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has a similar problem. On setup it wants me to set up siri, payment, etc. My options are to setup now or do it later. There needs to be a third option that I will never setup these things and never ask me again.

I don't think Apple recurringly hounds you to sign in when you hit "Do it later" though. I read "Do it later" here as a subtle reminder that "the option is not gone. You can do it later on your own in your system settings if you want", as opposed to "ok we'll ask you again later unprompted :)"

I definitely get hit with a "sign in to siri" on a regular basis. The iPhone I use is a dev phone, I don't need all of the iCloud, etc services. So I suspect that anybody who says "Do it later" will be hounded just like I am.

Re: Microsoft plugging more ads into Windows 11 Start Menu

#406

Post by shrimp_emoji »

pbz wrote: post #167

These kinds of changes just make the OS look cheap (like a bazaar of sorts). They're visually ugly, but easily ignored (I rarely open the start menu). What I'm more concerned / annoyed by is the trend of Windows fighting with you. For example, try to disable the real-time antivirus protection. The UI makes it look like it's off, but then it turns back on by itself. Then you go to group policy to make it explicit that…

It is cheap.

It's a neglected heap of legacy garbage, maintained just superficially enough to maintain profitability from its inertial marketshare (i.e., how everything runs on it already and how it's a massive coordinate problem to ever change that).

The KDE Dolphin file manager is way better than Explorer, feature-wise, and has been for probably over a decade. Dolphin was made for free by like five Dutch guys. Explorer is from a multi-billion dollar corporation that's buying every service and other company you know. I guess it's not profitable to improve user UX, so you have ridiculous artifacts like how much Explorer still sucks and how long it's sucked. :D (I think it only got a dark theme, like... 5 years ago? Linux file managers have had those for decades.)

If you're lucky enough to experience a change in your priority matrix such that things Windows is bad at (like programming) become more salient to your well-being than things Windows is good at (like playing AAA games), I recommend trying Linux (shout out to Manjaro) out. I'm glad I experienced that change, allowing me to flee to Linux and never look back.

Re: Microsoft plugging more ads into Windows 11 Start Menu

#407

Post by snvzz »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #384
snvzz wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And we're fine with it. They can suffer Windows or MacOS, it means nothing to me.

I'm not entirely fine with it, because I suspect Valve will only continue investing in Linux gaming if there's a potential market for it.

I doubt this "potential market" is going to shrink, relative to when Valve started investing in Open Source operating systems.

Re: Microsoft plugging more ads into Windows 11 Start Menu

#408

Post by Samon »

cduzz wrote: post #251
whoopdedo wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's what the phrase "the customer is always right" originally meant. It means you can do all the market research, development, testing, polling, and seeding to sell a product. But the ultimate decider of whether the product is "good" is whether or not the people buy it. If your sales plan flops don't say "it's not the product's fault, I just need to do a better job marketing it." No, the product is wrong, the custom…

Please define "Customer" in this context? There are several parties at this party. One is the person who bought a computer with an operating system on it; possibly they even paid for the operating system itself, though more likely they are using the operating system that came on the computer they're using. Another party is the one who bought a license from microsoft; occasionally they're the same party but more typic…

In the newspaper industry, the 'Customer' refers to the advertisers who pay for the ads, advertorials, sponsored content, etc that actually make the publication a viable business model.

The individual who buys and reads the newspapaper is referred to as the 'Consumer'.

Re: Microsoft plugging more ads into Windows 11 Start Menu

#409

Post by [deleted] »

sleepybrett wrote: post #279
zamalek wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Developer mindshare. There are a huge amount of developers who want Windows (or really Visual Studio proper), and there is a meticulously tarred highway from Windows to Azure. The irony is that this bullshit will drive developers away, because they are some of the least likely to put up with it.

LOL since 2010 I've watched windows laptops disappear and mac laptops appear in pretty much every department i visit EXCEPT finance. There is exactly one engineer on my team that still uses windows but he admits that it's just inertia. Every piece of software he uses regularly either exists on linux/mac or can be replaces quite easily on linux/mac with no loss in productivity. Hell he spends most of his time in windo…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft plugging more ads into Windows 11 Start Menu

#410

Post by whalesalad »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #386
monkaiju wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I refuse to use software as intrusive as the anti-cheat stuff, just not worth it.

That's my position as well. Even if we just look at it from a hedonistic perspective. I play games to be happy and destress. Windows' abusiveness and anticheat software make me unhappy and/or stressed. For pure hedonism I'm better off with Proton and a smaller selection of games.

My friends and I live all around the US. The one game we all play together has anticheat. It also happens to be cross platform and they are on console. As far as being happy - being able to cross play with my buds and voice chat while we are thousands of miles apart is well worth it.
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