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My "signature edition" Surface Book 2 running Windows 10 Professional came with a bunch of crap on the start menu such as Candy Crush Saga, Twitter, some travel

My "signature edition" Surface Book 2 running Windows 10 Professional came with a bunch of crap on the start menu such as Candy Crush Saga, Twitter, some travel app, Minecraft, and advert for Office 365 and some other crap I can't remember. I had to right-click and uninstall them all manually but then a few days later a couple of them returned?! I ended up searching for a PowerShell script that actually removes them. Until a few months later when Microsoft rolled out the April 2018 update and they all magically reappeared again so I had to look up that fucking PowerShell script again. I could kind of accept this on the Home version but on the PROFESSIONAL version?! No fucking way. Why on earth should my pro version come with Minecraft and Twitter?! And this is a £2500 laptop made and sold by Microsoft! Not some £200 Acer from PC World.

supernovae 8y ago
Those aren't even installed and you can turn off app recommendations Settings->personalization->start-> make sure "Show suggestions occasionally in start" is off. Minecraft is awesome BTW :) My android phone came with a ton of crap, my amazon tablet had a bunch of amazon crap.. i don't really think showcasing the marketplace of the hardware you have selected is that evil - especially since its easy to customize if it really bothers you.
- satysin 8y ago
  > Those aren't even installed and you can turn off app recommendations They installed the moment it saw a network connection which was before I even finished setup because it set that up during the OOBE. > Settings->personalization->start-> make sure "Show suggestions occasionally in start" is off. That setting does not seem to have any effect on Candy Crush, Twitter, etc. on a default install. > Minecraft is awesome BTW :) Yes it is but not on my £2500 business laptop. Unless I specifically install it to use. >My android phone came with a ton of crap, my amazon tablet had a bunch of amazon crap.. i don't really think showcasing the marketplace of the hardware you have selected is that evil - especially since its easy to customize if it really bothers you. I am not talking about Android or Amazon though am I? But if you want to bring up Android - My Pixel 2 XL didn't come with a bunch of third party apps and/or adverts for their own, not free, software. Sure it came with some Google specific apps but that is why I didn't list OneNote, Edge, Groove Music or Photos in my list of Windows 10 apps as they are understandable to include even if I have no use for them. And allow me to bring up my MacBook Pro which didn't come with any third party apps and/or adverts for their own, not free, software. In fact the only thing it comes with is macOS and the iWorks suite (free btw). And if you do a clean install of macOS yourself you don't even get iWorks pre-installed, you have to manually grab them again from the App Store. The Windows experience is horrible out of the box even on a "signature edition" system. Yes you can go in and "fix" things with PowerShell scripts and changing a few options in Settings.appx but my point is that shouldn't be needed on a so called 'professional' operating system that comes on a £2000+ computer direct from Microsoft.
  - idiomatic1 8y ago
    Couldn't agree more. I'm trying Windows 10 after many years on Linux, and I'm amazed at the hot mess I find. There isn't even a usable terminal. ConEmu looks like it could work with enough tweaking, still trying to get all characters to show up properly (many do, some don't).
    - NicoJuicy 8y ago
      I think they are working on that though. Since they tweaked the CMD for the Linux subsystem
    - supernovae 8y ago
      Conemu works (and is opensource) and Microsoft has already said they're adding official pty support. https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/2018/08/02/windows-command-line-introducing-the-windows-pseudo-console-conpty/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/2018/08/02/wind... Every mac owner quickly switches to iTerm from built in terminal nd lets be honest - there are a bazillion payware options for windows people could use too.

supernovae 8y ago

Those aren't even installed and you can turn off app recommendations Settings->personalization->start-> make sure "Show suggestions occasionally in start" is off. Minecraft is awesome BTW :) My android phone came with a ton of crap, my amazon tablet had a bunch of amazon crap.. i don't really think showcasing the marketplace of the hardware you have selected is that evil - especially since its easy to customize if it really bothers you.

satysin 8y ago
> Those aren't even installed and you can turn off app recommendations They installed the moment it saw a network connection which was before I even finished setup because it set that up during the OOBE. > Settings->personalization->start-> make sure "Show suggestions occasionally in start" is off. That setting does not seem to have any effect on Candy Crush, Twitter, etc. on a default install. > Minecraft is awesome BTW :) Yes it is but not on my £2500 business laptop. Unless I specifically install it to use. >My android phone came with a ton of crap, my amazon tablet had a bunch of amazon crap.. i don't really think showcasing the marketplace of the hardware you have selected is that evil - especially since its easy to customize if it really bothers you. I am not talking about Android or Amazon though am I? But if you want to bring up Android - My Pixel 2 XL didn't come with a bunch of third party apps and/or adverts for their own, not free, software. Sure it came with some Google specific apps but that is why I didn't list OneNote, Edge, Groove Music or Photos in my list of Windows 10 apps as they are understandable to include even if I have no use for them. And allow me to bring up my MacBook Pro which didn't come with any third party apps and/or adverts for their own, not free, software. In fact the only thing it comes with is macOS and the iWorks suite (free btw). And if you do a clean install of macOS yourself you don't even get iWorks pre-installed, you have to manually grab them again from the App Store. The Windows experience is horrible out of the box even on a "signature edition" system. Yes you can go in and "fix" things with PowerShell scripts and changing a few options in Settings.appx but my point is that shouldn't be needed on a so called 'professional' operating system that comes on a £2000+ computer direct from Microsoft.
- idiomatic1 8y ago
  Couldn't agree more. I'm trying Windows 10 after many years on Linux, and I'm amazed at the hot mess I find. There isn't even a usable terminal. ConEmu looks like it could work with enough tweaking, still trying to get all characters to show up properly (many do, some don't).
  - NicoJuicy 8y ago
    I think they are working on that though. Since they tweaked the CMD for the Linux subsystem
  - supernovae 8y ago
    Conemu works (and is opensource) and Microsoft has already said they're adding official pty support. https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/2018/08/02/windows-command-line-introducing-the-windows-pseudo-console-conpty/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/2018/08/02/wind... Every mac owner quickly switches to iTerm from built in terminal nd lets be honest - there are a bazillion payware options for windows people could use too.