10 ms·

Microsoft tests Windows account menu error badge when Microsoft Account not used

135 points by tech234a 4y ago

newaccount74 4y ago
Oh god just like Apple keeps showing these annoying "unread" indicators to tell you to sign into iCloud or get one of their subscriptions....
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- phone_book 4y ago
  Yes! Incredibly annoying. Just checked my iPad and I had 2 notification markers or whatever they are called (the number on the Settings app icon) telling me about "special offers" since I recently purchased an iPhone and one to set up Apple Pay. On my Mac when I wasn't signed into iCloud I would get occasional popups telling me to sign in. Thanks Tim Apple
  - solarkraft 4y ago
    I'm not signed into iCloud on the main account on my mac. It brings some annoyances but in general it works remarkably fine. One day I desperately needed something from the App store, so I made another account to sign in there. Ever since then I've been getting a "sign into you account" badge on my Settings app prompting me to remove it from the dock.
  - tech234a 4y ago
    The Apple Pay one goes away if you start doing the steps but cancel out before actually entering any information.
- fatnoah 4y ago
  I was just thinking that as one popped up just now. "Some account services will not be available until you sign in again" all day every day. Whenever I try to close it, it (of course) brings me to settings. Guess what? If I haven't used those services over the past 6 years, I don't think I need them.
- sneak 4y ago
  At least on the iOS ones if you click through them, they go away (even if you don't take their suggested action). The day they don't is the day I throw my iPhone in the river.
  - stby 4y ago
    Pretty sure this day is today. It probably doesn't matter much on a personal device, but my company-issued test and dev iPhone has several "unread" suggestions that I can't seem to remove.
dbg31415 4y ago
You get the same sort of "error" message in iOS when you don't turn Siri on. It's annoying that these companies are all starting to use "error" messages like this.
- mrtksn 4y ago
  You don't get an error message, you get a badge. The difference is that the it acts as a reminder and doesn't pretend that there's something wrong.
  - wbkang 4y ago
    You get a badge for the "System Settings" app for both on macOS & iOS. It's very distracting because there is no way to dismiss it, I had to unpin them from the dock.
    - AlexandrB 4y ago
      You can dismiss it by going to settings, tapping the prompt to set up Siri, then saying you'll "do it later" (again). Annoying AF. What's been bugging me is that a recent update (16.2?) means there's no way to dismiss the "Set Up Cellular" prompt in Settings anymore on an iPhone with no SIM. All of this is, frankly, paternalistic bullshit that treats the user like some kind of idiot or sometimes "mark".
    - rewgs 4y ago
      Strange, I have Siri completely disabled on Ventura and don't get a notification.
      - wbkang 4y ago
        I am referring to not being logged into Apple ID.
  - Timon3 4y ago
    It probably depends a lot on the individual user. I know many people don't have a problem with pending notification badges, some colleagues literally always have a bunch. But personally it's a big distraction, because for me a notification badge means I have something left to do. At worst it is dismissing the pending notification, but I always stay at 0 notifications in any apps or services that are running. It's been distracting enough that I didn't use my previous company iPhone, and it's distracting enough that I'll fully switch off Windows.
Phelinofist 4y ago
Totally unrelated, but why is the twitter logo the dog if dogecoin?
- torh 4y ago
  I guess you have to ask Elon Musk...
- butt____hugger 4y ago
  [flagged]
- Rebelgecko 4y ago
  To commemorate Elon's attempt to dismiss the SEC lawsuit last week (or at least try to out-SEO the news about it). Dogecoin has also gone up a lot since the change.
- samspenc 4y ago
  Some news reports on this: https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-news-today-04-03-2023/card/dogecoin-jumps-22-after-twitter-logo-switches-to-shiba-inu-QH1VYAdoscZaplvWNKjr https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-news-today-04-... https://www.engadget.com/twitter-is-covered-in-doge-for-no-discernible-reason-192552749.html https://www.engadget.com/twitter-is-covered-in-doge-for-no-d...
  - TobTobXX 4y ago
    > The Twitter press email, meanwhile, returned a poop emoji when Engadget sent a comment request. wild. Though audacious, it completely lacks style and wit and thus is just rude and abrasive.
    - theodric 4y ago
      That's automated, apparently
    - Dalewyn 4y ago
      Replying to the media with just "poop" is the textbook example of being Spartan, I would call that stylish and witty. Of course, my opinion of the media is that they're shit and deserve all the bad treatment they get.
sieabahlpark 4y ago
[dead]
sdze 4y ago
I wouldn’t mind signing up if Microsoft Account was End to End Encrypted.
- solarkraft 4y ago
  I still would. I would accept it if providers other than Microsoft could offer the service.
donmcronald 4y ago
I hate it. I always set up my Windows PCs with an offline admin account and normal user accounts for day-to-day work. Some of those I log in with my Microsoft account(s). Some I don’t. It depends on what my needs are. Encouraging everyone to use one administrator, do everything account just because it makes it easier for Microsoft to push their services seems pretty pathetic to me. Toss in the per-profile licensing and activation for Office, etc. and it’s obvious Microsoft doesn’t care about security if it gets in the way of sales.
- imran-iq 4y ago
  > It depends on what my needs are. Unfortunately Microsoft/windows does not care what your needs are, it only cares about data collection and ads. I recently had to install windows in a vm because I could not get adobe reader working through wine. The install process was awful: * Dark pattern to try and force me to login with a MS account during setup * Majority of setup steps pertain to data collection and/or ads After setting it up, I had to open up edge to download and install adobe reader, once again * Nags me to login to an account * Most if not all setup steps are about ads and data collection All for the sake of filling out some pdfs. I am truly grateful that Valve is pushing proton as it makes me (almost never) have to leave linux.
  - HnUser12 4y ago
    I was also trying to install windows 11 on a VM to do some one off work. It was next to impossible to create a local account with internet connection on. I had to restart my installation process with Internet disconnected. And even after I installed, I realized how many times it asks me to login. Even desktop features like widgets need login.
    - imran-iq 4y ago
      > I had to restart my installation process with Internet disconnected. No way! Thankfully I went for windows 10 which did not need me to unplug the internet (just a hidden option down to the side), but that's just awful.
GartzenDeHaes 4y ago
I guess Microsoft didn't learn anything from Internet Explorer. When the thought leaders dump your product, no one else will want it either.
- BitwiseFool 4y ago
  It's a lot easier to switch browsers than it is to switch operating systems.
- donmcronald 4y ago
  I'd say Edge is a better comparison for that. I used Edge (logged in) + Bing for 3+ years and recently switched back to Firefox. When it was new, Edge was great. It was a Google free Chromium browser that integrated with my MS account and got out of my way. Now Edge is a bloated piece of trash because Microsoft can't stop jamming crap into it.
  - moogly 4y ago
    Firefox also bugs you about signing in to Firefox Sync or Pocket or trying to upsell you their VPN.
    - ok_dad 4y ago
      I don't ever see any nagging by Firefox, except for the first time I installed it and a few tabs popped up to tell me about certain features or when a big new feature is released and they pop a tab up for that feature. I think those are pretty reasonable.
      - moogly 4y ago
        They do it on updates too. Not every time, but every few ones.
  - vidanay 4y ago
    I jumped from Chrome to Edge ~3 years ago, and ever since it has been a steady downward trend with each release. I switched back to FF a couple weeks ago when the giant Bing Button appeared and can't be easily removed.
CatWChainsaw 4y ago
From the screenshot, it doesn't even look like there's a way to get rid of the "error message"... short of doing what Microsoft wants. Anyone who works at Microsoft brave enough to comment...?
- guessmyname 4y ago
  > Anyone who works at Microsoft brave enough to comment...? Approximately 200,000 people work at Microsoft, and I can assure you that the vast majority do not hold the authority to make decisions like this. In reality, I suspect that many of them view this kind of user interface/user experience as unfriendly and express their concerns to higher-ups, but without any influence, they may never see any improvements. Given this fact, I would recommend rephrasing your request to call for a Microsoft executive to clarify this decision. However, you probably already know the answer to that question: engagement, which leads to promotions, which leads to more money.
  - CatWChainsaw 4y ago
    Yes. It would be nice to see one being honest behind the protection of a pseudonym.... even nicer if they slip some hints for how to toggle these nastygrams off.
    - msthrw153352 4y ago
      The problem is most of us have enough clues on our primary accounts that it wouldn't look great badmouthing our employer to the degree I'm about to. I regularly feel disgust at some of the decisions I see the OS and other consumer product teams roll out. It makes the company look bad, and I believe hurts our long term best interest by cheapening our product and brand, let alone the ethical perspective of dark pattern or depriving users control over their own devices. I know of no way to turn these off short of using an older version of Windows. I think some of the enterprise releases may have ways to create local accounts, but they may still hit this, I'm not familiar with that side of the world. If there is third party software to mitigate this I encourage it. If this drives you to linux I encourage and am encouraged by it. If you pirate out of protest I encourage it. Consolidation and other related factors in the OS marketplace have rendered consumers with very little real leverage, and this is not a state of affairs I am happy with. To guess's point, I can also say that I know of no coworkers happy with this or who have any power to impact this state of affairs. I am not in the OS org, but I would be surprised if it were any different there. To put it crudely, incentives are a bitch.
stragies 4y ago
Does this also happen with Active-Directory domain accounts?
_8j50 4y ago
You know, I with most of you on being against this. I will always use offline accounts myself but for regular folks there is a security advantage to having an MS monitored and access controlled account, especially for people that reuse passwords. But then again an online account is easy to phish and then pathways open up to control the windows device.
- npteljes 4y ago
  I feel a bit similar about connecting the phone to the cloud. Do I want the data in the cloud? No, especially at the first. But the second the phone drops into water or something, it will be a godsend. Just buy a new one, log in and presto, you're at home, no data is missing. As a service provider, I think I too would push it on common folk. And of course personally, I set up my own cloud. But that's definitely not a path everyone can walk.
nerdjon 4y ago
The more and more I see, the decision to finally install Windows 10 LTSC is more and more justified for my gaming PC. I have to wonder though how much of this stuff are they going to try to shove into Windows 11 LTSC when that comes out or are they going to continue the pattern of a lot of the shady stuff magically being missing from LTSC?
- shp0ngle 4y ago
  LTSC is a godsend. Too bad all the licenses are either pirated or when real, crazy expensive.
  - nerdjon 4y ago
    There is a GitHub project that you may find valuable. But yeah, and it make sense. I mean Microsoft doesn't want to make it easy to strip out all of the crap they add in (or really never have it in the first place). Not that I am defending Microsoft since this is their own doing, but I can understand why LTSC is not... easy isn't the right word. Can't think of the word I am looking for. Edit: The best part is I have not noticed any downsides. I did have to install the Windows Store for the Xbox app but that still leaves a TON of stuff that isn't there.
    - shp0ngle 4y ago
      Did you mean to link a github page?
- snazz 4y ago
  If you're affiliated with a university or high school (or know a student who will help you out), you can get free Windows Server licenses through their Azure student/educator deal. Also includes all the fancy versions of Visual Studio, SQL Server, and education versions of Windows 10 and 11 (which include Group Policy).
mlrubenews 4y ago
[dead]
xg15 4y ago
I can understand the outrage over dark patterns, but I think you could also view this change from a different perspective: Microsoft makes it clear that long/medium term they want to make Microsoft accounts mandatory to use Windows and view local accounts as a legacy exception which should be progressively eliminated. If you follow that assumption, it's perfectly logical to see a local account as an "error". So if the roadmap is that clear, I think the better question is why people go still along with it and keep using Windows. Or alternatively: Why are software companies allowed to just make those decisions, even it could potentially disrupt the work of millions of users.
- stronglikedan 4y ago
  > why people go still along with it and keep using Windows Because it's often the only option in the corporate world.
  - hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
    And this is probably the fate of Windows in the long run: a desktop operating system for corporations.
    - BizarroLand 4y ago
      Windows will be the reason for Linux overtaking the gaming and home desktop market. They'll pull a 180 right around Windows 13 when linux OS is released that works by default with 95% of games and 95% of hardware takes 20% of the desktop market.
      - 0cf8612b2e1e 4y ago
        Not if Microsoft can pull off some Secure Boot shenanigans. For your safety.
        josephcsible 4y ago
        Like they already did on ARM.
sys32768 4y ago
I support a Windows site and am wishing I could retire before the Windows 10 end of support in Q4 2025. My only hope is that Windows 11 becomes 12 by then and resembles something like Windows 9 might have been. I understand goat farming done right can provide a living, but I also understand there's not a restart button on goats.
chinathrow 4y ago
If this shit persists, I'm going to convert the three last systems I support to Linux - enough is enough.
- ok_dad 4y ago
  My wife couldn't get along with Linux, but I'm trying to get her to at least get an Apple computer next time. At least Apple is a half-decade behind the other companies that are shoving ad-filled crapware into their OSes (MS, Google) and hopefully by the time iOS/OSX are merged and start getting ads and stuff in them and disallowing you from installing unapproved binaries, I can have trained her to use a Linux-like software and then move her onto Linux and never have to deal with that shit again. My son will use nothing but Linux on his computers once he's older.
zokier 4y ago
Huh, I didn't know you even could run Win11 without MS account.
simse 4y ago
I'm annoyed that Windows named my user account hello.. because my email is hello@simse.io.
- hbn 4y ago
  For a while now they've made the default user account name by truncating the first 5 letters of your email (so if your email starts with 'robert' your username will be 'rober'), and to stop this you need to do a weird workaround where you dodge some UI tricks that get you to login with your Microsoft account so you can create a local user account with a name of your choice. I believe when I setup my recent machine I had to be disconnected from the internet to be able to complete setup without a Microsoft account.
chankstein38 4y ago
Ah, another thing to learn to ignore because everyone seems to think my attention is owned by them. These companies don't seem to realize that continuing to add these petty things will just make us learn to ignore them more and more. It's like notifications. My discord is always on no notifications and the @heres and stuff make my icon badge always say 9+ or whatever. So now I never see things people want to share because they've overused the alerts. Facebook was the same. I turned off notifications completely because I couldn't disable specific ones I didn't need so they started emailing me so I blocked them as spam. Sorry FB, your loss. My life is better without your garbage product anyway.
- jbj 4y ago
  If you are on an android phone what supports shelter[1], I can recommend installing "social" apps inside the shelter, and just sleep the apps when you don't use them. In regards to windows, it feels to me as morphing into a solution for large corporations if disregarding the tabloid news while leaving private users just waiting for a friendly OS to be presented for them. [1] https://github.com/PeterCxy/Shelter https://github.com/PeterCxy/Shelter
  - chankstein38 4y ago
    I hadn't heard of Shelter before but this looks really neat!
  - nullfield 4y ago
    Not quite as good, but you can turn off background app refresh on iOS to cripple their ability to do anything, though I believe push notifications come via Apple’s server anyway.
- s3p 4y ago
  This 100%. I turn off notifications every time an app abuses them. Spotify wants to tell me about a random album I should listen to? Notifications blocked. Twitter recommends an account to follow? Notifs off. The pattern has continued to the point where I now do not get any social media notifications and I only see the app's content when I actively open it up and check. They waste our time so we disable their functionality.
hbn 4y ago
It should make a buzzing noise every 5 minutes and pop up an alert window over the center of the screen, some people might not see that.
jeppester 4y ago
It really is a testament to the power of the Windows monopoly that MS can continously make the product worse without losing a meaningful amount of customers. Windows is more than ripe for disruption, but unfortunate the monopoly is enforced by drivers, productivity software, habit, gaming etc. It's depressing to think about how much better our computers could have worked if there had been real competition in the market of PC OSs for the last 25 years.
- AlexandrB 4y ago
  The antitrust action against Microsoft in the 90s didn't go far enough and should have split off the OS from the rest of the business.
- gred 4y ago
  It's all the little things. I just set up my first Linux / Windows dual boot laptop to ease my way out of Windows, but my day 1 experience with Linux involved disabling IPv6 so that I could get onto WiFi + internet, disabling the HiDPI daemon so that my screen resolution changes would persist across restarts, and wearing headphones most of the day because the laptop's external speakers don't work out of the box. The Apple-like "everything-included" model might work well for desktop Linux, but the Windows-like "BYO everything" model is still quite rough... and I don't see that changing because it's mostly hardware / driver-related, and there's a constant churn of new devices, chips and accessories.
- jiggawatts 4y ago
  It’s a classic tragedy of the commons: individual managers at Microsoft can abuse the reputation of their org for personal gain. All of these moves I call “KPI features”, as in: “I have to make this worse to meet my personal bonus criteria, sorry.” There are so many dark patterns in Windows now because of this. Nobody at Microsoft cares about the products at all any more.
- rchaud 4y ago
  Windows has already been disrupted: first by the web, and second by mobile. The reason Windows continues to dominate desktop is because Apple isn't a competitor, more like an off-ramp for those that can afford better. And Linux on Intel/AMD is finicky on most OEM machines except for a couple of machines that are 10 years old.
r00fus 4y ago
At this point, I struggle to understand who still uses Windows for anything productive. If it's only for games, MS is going to be very disappointed when all of gaming moves to Linux/Wine/Proton. Unless I don't understand what's going on, I feel MS is on thin ice here (everything looks fine until it's simply not anymore).
Alifatisk 4y ago
This is why I use Windows only for games, nothing else. They have little to no respect to their users because they no we have almost no other options (except macOS). When the day I am able to play the majority of my steam games on a Linux device, that's the day I say goodbye to Windows.
dahwolf 4y ago
Windows is incredibly broken and yet miraculously its power is that it works. My exotic mix of apps work. Games work, new ones and 20 year old ones. All peripherals and hardware combinations work, or have a way to make them work. There always seems to be a path towards success. Years or decades of muscle memory fueling resistance to change, corporate lock-in, game compatibility...that's how Microsoft can get away with almost anything. Should Apple want to, they could get the ultimate revenge by reversing the lost PC wars. And actually dominate the laptop/desktop market. They have the hardware, software and resources to do so. But it won't happen, it would require too many non-Apple moves, like wide compatibility, very long term legacy support, low margin products.
- stby 4y ago
  Ironically, macOS already shows an error message when an account is not using iCloud. Using both macOS and Windows 11 on an almost daily basis, they are really not that different when it comes to nagging users. Both show full-screen displays on startup from time to time where they want to change some settings (activating Siri, using Edge as default browser, ...), try to sell additional services, make you use an online account, and come with a lot of bloatware.
prepend 4y ago
I tried to do a google search in incognito mode and got a bit pop up first asking if I wanted to sign in for better results. A later session did the same thing. I don’t like how companies are interrupting flow and trying to force logins.
nokya 4y ago
I for one am very glad that they are doing this: the more they insist on forcing people to create accounts the more they get people interested into switching to alternatives. The sad (and quite ironic) thing with Microsoft is that while it is a company that is pretty much liked across the world, its managers keep doing their best to generate distrust and disdain amongst whoever actually owns a legitimate license of Windows.

135 points by tech234a 4y ago

Oh god just like Apple keeps showing these annoying "unread" indicators to tell you to sign into iCloud or get one of their subscriptions....

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
phone_book 4y ago
Yes! Incredibly annoying. Just checked my iPad and I had 2 notification markers or whatever they are called (the number on the Settings app icon) telling me about "special offers" since I recently purchased an iPhone and one to set up Apple Pay. On my Mac when I wasn't signed into iCloud I would get occasional popups telling me to sign in. Thanks Tim Apple
- solarkraft 4y ago
  I'm not signed into iCloud on the main account on my mac. It brings some annoyances but in general it works remarkably fine. One day I desperately needed something from the App store, so I made another account to sign in there. Ever since then I've been getting a "sign into you account" badge on my Settings app prompting me to remove it from the dock.
- tech234a 4y ago
  The Apple Pay one goes away if you start doing the steps but cancel out before actually entering any information.
fatnoah 4y ago
I was just thinking that as one popped up just now. "Some account services will not be available until you sign in again" all day every day. Whenever I try to close it, it (of course) brings me to settings. Guess what? If I haven't used those services over the past 6 years, I don't think I need them.
sneak 4y ago
At least on the iOS ones if you click through them, they go away (even if you don't take their suggested action). The day they don't is the day I throw my iPhone in the river.
- stby 4y ago
  Pretty sure this day is today. It probably doesn't matter much on a personal device, but my company-issued test and dev iPhone has several "unread" suggestions that I can't seem to remove.

dbg31415 4y ago

You get the same sort of "error" message in iOS when you don't turn Siri on. It's annoying that these companies are all starting to use "error" messages like this.

mrtksn 4y ago
You don't get an error message, you get a badge. The difference is that the it acts as a reminder and doesn't pretend that there's something wrong.
- wbkang 4y ago
  You get a badge for the "System Settings" app for both on macOS & iOS. It's very distracting because there is no way to dismiss it, I had to unpin them from the dock.
  - AlexandrB 4y ago
    You can dismiss it by going to settings, tapping the prompt to set up Siri, then saying you'll "do it later" (again). Annoying AF. What's been bugging me is that a recent update (16.2?) means there's no way to dismiss the "Set Up Cellular" prompt in Settings anymore on an iPhone with no SIM. All of this is, frankly, paternalistic bullshit that treats the user like some kind of idiot or sometimes "mark".
  - rewgs 4y ago
    Strange, I have Siri completely disabled on Ventura and don't get a notification.
    - wbkang 4y ago
      I am referring to not being logged into Apple ID.
- Timon3 4y ago
  It probably depends a lot on the individual user. I know many people don't have a problem with pending notification badges, some colleagues literally always have a bunch. But personally it's a big distraction, because for me a notification badge means I have something left to do. At worst it is dismissing the pending notification, but I always stay at 0 notifications in any apps or services that are running. It's been distracting enough that I didn't use my previous company iPhone, and it's distracting enough that I'll fully switch off Windows.

Phelinofist 4y ago

Totally unrelated, but why is the twitter logo the dog if dogecoin?

torh 4y ago
I guess you have to ask Elon Musk...
butt____hugger 4y ago
[flagged]
Rebelgecko 4y ago
To commemorate Elon's attempt to dismiss the SEC lawsuit last week (or at least try to out-SEO the news about it). Dogecoin has also gone up a lot since the change.
samspenc 4y ago
Some news reports on this: https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-news-today-04-03-2023/card/dogecoin-jumps-22-after-twitter-logo-switches-to-shiba-inu-QH1VYAdoscZaplvWNKjr https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-news-today-04-... https://www.engadget.com/twitter-is-covered-in-doge-for-no-discernible-reason-192552749.html https://www.engadget.com/twitter-is-covered-in-doge-for-no-d...
- TobTobXX 4y ago
  > The Twitter press email, meanwhile, returned a poop emoji when Engadget sent a comment request. wild. Though audacious, it completely lacks style and wit and thus is just rude and abrasive.
  - theodric 4y ago
    That's automated, apparently
  - Dalewyn 4y ago
    Replying to the media with just "poop" is the textbook example of being Spartan, I would call that stylish and witty. Of course, my opinion of the media is that they're shit and deserve all the bad treatment they get.

sieabahlpark 4y ago

[dead]

sdze 4y ago

I wouldn’t mind signing up if Microsoft Account was End to End Encrypted.

solarkraft 4y ago
I still would. I would accept it if providers other than Microsoft could offer the service.

donmcronald 4y ago

I hate it. I always set up my Windows PCs with an offline admin account and normal user accounts for day-to-day work. Some of those I log in with my Microsoft account(s). Some I don’t. It depends on what my needs are. Encouraging everyone to use one administrator, do everything account just because it makes it easier for Microsoft to push their services seems pretty pathetic to me. Toss in the per-profile licensing and activation for Office, etc. and it’s obvious Microsoft doesn’t care about security if it gets in the way of sales.

imran-iq 4y ago
> It depends on what my needs are. Unfortunately Microsoft/windows does not care what your needs are, it only cares about data collection and ads. I recently had to install windows in a vm because I could not get adobe reader working through wine. The install process was awful: * Dark pattern to try and force me to login with a MS account during setup * Majority of setup steps pertain to data collection and/or ads After setting it up, I had to open up edge to download and install adobe reader, once again * Nags me to login to an account * Most if not all setup steps are about ads and data collection All for the sake of filling out some pdfs. I am truly grateful that Valve is pushing proton as it makes me (almost never) have to leave linux.
- HnUser12 4y ago
  I was also trying to install windows 11 on a VM to do some one off work. It was next to impossible to create a local account with internet connection on. I had to restart my installation process with Internet disconnected. And even after I installed, I realized how many times it asks me to login. Even desktop features like widgets need login.
  - imran-iq 4y ago
    > I had to restart my installation process with Internet disconnected. No way! Thankfully I went for windows 10 which did not need me to unplug the internet (just a hidden option down to the side), but that's just awful.

GartzenDeHaes 4y ago

I guess Microsoft didn't learn anything from Internet Explorer. When the thought leaders dump your product, no one else will want it either.

BitwiseFool 4y ago
It's a lot easier to switch browsers than it is to switch operating systems.
donmcronald 4y ago
I'd say Edge is a better comparison for that. I used Edge (logged in) + Bing for 3+ years and recently switched back to Firefox. When it was new, Edge was great. It was a Google free Chromium browser that integrated with my MS account and got out of my way. Now Edge is a bloated piece of trash because Microsoft can't stop jamming crap into it.
- moogly 4y ago
  Firefox also bugs you about signing in to Firefox Sync or Pocket or trying to upsell you their VPN.
  - ok_dad 4y ago
    I don't ever see any nagging by Firefox, except for the first time I installed it and a few tabs popped up to tell me about certain features or when a big new feature is released and they pop a tab up for that feature. I think those are pretty reasonable.
    - moogly 4y ago
      They do it on updates too. Not every time, but every few ones.
- vidanay 4y ago
  I jumped from Chrome to Edge ~3 years ago, and ever since it has been a steady downward trend with each release. I switched back to FF a couple weeks ago when the giant Bing Button appeared and can't be easily removed.

CatWChainsaw 4y ago

From the screenshot, it doesn't even look like there's a way to get rid of the "error message"... short of doing what Microsoft wants. Anyone who works at Microsoft brave enough to comment...?

guessmyname 4y ago
> Anyone who works at Microsoft brave enough to comment...? Approximately 200,000 people work at Microsoft, and I can assure you that the vast majority do not hold the authority to make decisions like this. In reality, I suspect that many of them view this kind of user interface/user experience as unfriendly and express their concerns to higher-ups, but without any influence, they may never see any improvements. Given this fact, I would recommend rephrasing your request to call for a Microsoft executive to clarify this decision. However, you probably already know the answer to that question: engagement, which leads to promotions, which leads to more money.
- CatWChainsaw 4y ago
  Yes. It would be nice to see one being honest behind the protection of a pseudonym.... even nicer if they slip some hints for how to toggle these nastygrams off.
  - msthrw153352 4y ago
    The problem is most of us have enough clues on our primary accounts that it wouldn't look great badmouthing our employer to the degree I'm about to. I regularly feel disgust at some of the decisions I see the OS and other consumer product teams roll out. It makes the company look bad, and I believe hurts our long term best interest by cheapening our product and brand, let alone the ethical perspective of dark pattern or depriving users control over their own devices. I know of no way to turn these off short of using an older version of Windows. I think some of the enterprise releases may have ways to create local accounts, but they may still hit this, I'm not familiar with that side of the world. If there is third party software to mitigate this I encourage it. If this drives you to linux I encourage and am encouraged by it. If you pirate out of protest I encourage it. Consolidation and other related factors in the OS marketplace have rendered consumers with very little real leverage, and this is not a state of affairs I am happy with. To guess's point, I can also say that I know of no coworkers happy with this or who have any power to impact this state of affairs. I am not in the OS org, but I would be surprised if it were any different there. To put it crudely, incentives are a bitch.

stragies 4y ago

Does this also happen with Active-Directory domain accounts?

_8j50 4y ago

You know, I with most of you on being against this. I will always use offline accounts myself but for regular folks there is a security advantage to having an MS monitored and access controlled account, especially for people that reuse passwords. But then again an online account is easy to phish and then pathways open up to control the windows device.

npteljes 4y ago
I feel a bit similar about connecting the phone to the cloud. Do I want the data in the cloud? No, especially at the first. But the second the phone drops into water or something, it will be a godsend. Just buy a new one, log in and presto, you're at home, no data is missing. As a service provider, I think I too would push it on common folk. And of course personally, I set up my own cloud. But that's definitely not a path everyone can walk.

nerdjon 4y ago

The more and more I see, the decision to finally install Windows 10 LTSC is more and more justified for my gaming PC. I have to wonder though how much of this stuff are they going to try to shove into Windows 11 LTSC when that comes out or are they going to continue the pattern of a lot of the shady stuff magically being missing from LTSC?

shp0ngle 4y ago
LTSC is a godsend. Too bad all the licenses are either pirated or when real, crazy expensive.
- nerdjon 4y ago
  There is a GitHub project that you may find valuable. But yeah, and it make sense. I mean Microsoft doesn't want to make it easy to strip out all of the crap they add in (or really never have it in the first place). Not that I am defending Microsoft since this is their own doing, but I can understand why LTSC is not... easy isn't the right word. Can't think of the word I am looking for. Edit: The best part is I have not noticed any downsides. I did have to install the Windows Store for the Xbox app but that still leaves a TON of stuff that isn't there.
  - shp0ngle 4y ago
    Did you mean to link a github page?
snazz 4y ago
If you're affiliated with a university or high school (or know a student who will help you out), you can get free Windows Server licenses through their Azure student/educator deal. Also includes all the fancy versions of Visual Studio, SQL Server, and education versions of Windows 10 and 11 (which include Group Policy).

mlrubenews 4y ago

[dead]

xg15 4y ago

I can understand the outrage over dark patterns, but I think you could also view this change from a different perspective: Microsoft makes it clear that long/medium term they want to make Microsoft accounts mandatory to use Windows and view local accounts as a legacy exception which should be progressively eliminated. If you follow that assumption, it's perfectly logical to see a local account as an "error". So if the roadmap is that clear, I think the better question is why people go still along with it and keep using Windows. Or alternatively: Why are software companies allowed to just make those decisions, even it could potentially disrupt the work of millions of users.

stronglikedan 4y ago
> why people go still along with it and keep using Windows Because it's often the only option in the corporate world.
- hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
  And this is probably the fate of Windows in the long run: a desktop operating system for corporations.
  - BizarroLand 4y ago
    Windows will be the reason for Linux overtaking the gaming and home desktop market. They'll pull a 180 right around Windows 13 when linux OS is released that works by default with 95% of games and 95% of hardware takes 20% of the desktop market.
    - 0cf8612b2e1e 4y ago
      Not if Microsoft can pull off some Secure Boot shenanigans. For your safety.
      - josephcsible 4y ago
        Like they already did on ARM.

sys32768 4y ago

I support a Windows site and am wishing I could retire before the Windows 10 end of support in Q4 2025. My only hope is that Windows 11 becomes 12 by then and resembles something like Windows 9 might have been. I understand goat farming done right can provide a living, but I also understand there's not a restart button on goats.

chinathrow 4y ago

If this shit persists, I'm going to convert the three last systems I support to Linux - enough is enough.

ok_dad 4y ago
My wife couldn't get along with Linux, but I'm trying to get her to at least get an Apple computer next time. At least Apple is a half-decade behind the other companies that are shoving ad-filled crapware into their OSes (MS, Google) and hopefully by the time iOS/OSX are merged and start getting ads and stuff in them and disallowing you from installing unapproved binaries, I can have trained her to use a Linux-like software and then move her onto Linux and never have to deal with that shit again. My son will use nothing but Linux on his computers once he's older.

zokier 4y ago

Huh, I didn't know you even could run Win11 without MS account.

simse 4y ago

I'm annoyed that Windows named my user account hello.. because my email is hello@simse.io.

hbn 4y ago
For a while now they've made the default user account name by truncating the first 5 letters of your email (so if your email starts with 'robert' your username will be 'rober'), and to stop this you need to do a weird workaround where you dodge some UI tricks that get you to login with your Microsoft account so you can create a local user account with a name of your choice. I believe when I setup my recent machine I had to be disconnected from the internet to be able to complete setup without a Microsoft account.

chankstein38 4y ago

Ah, another thing to learn to ignore because everyone seems to think my attention is owned by them. These companies don't seem to realize that continuing to add these petty things will just make us learn to ignore them more and more. It's like notifications. My discord is always on no notifications and the @heres and stuff make my icon badge always say 9+ or whatever. So now I never see things people want to share because they've overused the alerts. Facebook was the same. I turned off notifications completely because I couldn't disable specific ones I didn't need so they started emailing me so I blocked them as spam. Sorry FB, your loss. My life is better without your garbage product anyway.

jbj 4y ago
If you are on an android phone what supports shelter[1], I can recommend installing "social" apps inside the shelter, and just sleep the apps when you don't use them. In regards to windows, it feels to me as morphing into a solution for large corporations if disregarding the tabloid news while leaving private users just waiting for a friendly OS to be presented for them. [1] https://github.com/PeterCxy/Shelter https://github.com/PeterCxy/Shelter
- chankstein38 4y ago
  I hadn't heard of Shelter before but this looks really neat!
- nullfield 4y ago
  Not quite as good, but you can turn off background app refresh on iOS to cripple their ability to do anything, though I believe push notifications come via Apple’s server anyway.
s3p 4y ago
This 100%. I turn off notifications every time an app abuses them. Spotify wants to tell me about a random album I should listen to? Notifications blocked. Twitter recommends an account to follow? Notifs off. The pattern has continued to the point where I now do not get any social media notifications and I only see the app's content when I actively open it up and check. They waste our time so we disable their functionality.

hbn 4y ago

It should make a buzzing noise every 5 minutes and pop up an alert window over the center of the screen, some people might not see that.

jeppester 4y ago

It really is a testament to the power of the Windows monopoly that MS can continously make the product worse without losing a meaningful amount of customers. Windows is more than ripe for disruption, but unfortunate the monopoly is enforced by drivers, productivity software, habit, gaming etc. It's depressing to think about how much better our computers could have worked if there had been real competition in the market of PC OSs for the last 25 years.

AlexandrB 4y ago
The antitrust action against Microsoft in the 90s didn't go far enough and should have split off the OS from the rest of the business.
gred 4y ago
It's all the little things. I just set up my first Linux / Windows dual boot laptop to ease my way out of Windows, but my day 1 experience with Linux involved disabling IPv6 so that I could get onto WiFi + internet, disabling the HiDPI daemon so that my screen resolution changes would persist across restarts, and wearing headphones most of the day because the laptop's external speakers don't work out of the box. The Apple-like "everything-included" model might work well for desktop Linux, but the Windows-like "BYO everything" model is still quite rough... and I don't see that changing because it's mostly hardware / driver-related, and there's a constant churn of new devices, chips and accessories.
jiggawatts 4y ago
It’s a classic tragedy of the commons: individual managers at Microsoft can abuse the reputation of their org for personal gain. All of these moves I call “KPI features”, as in: “I have to make this worse to meet my personal bonus criteria, sorry.” There are so many dark patterns in Windows now because of this. Nobody at Microsoft cares about the products at all any more.
rchaud 4y ago
Windows has already been disrupted: first by the web, and second by mobile. The reason Windows continues to dominate desktop is because Apple isn't a competitor, more like an off-ramp for those that can afford better. And Linux on Intel/AMD is finicky on most OEM machines except for a couple of machines that are 10 years old.

r00fus 4y ago

At this point, I struggle to understand who still uses Windows for anything productive. If it's only for games, MS is going to be very disappointed when all of gaming moves to Linux/Wine/Proton. Unless I don't understand what's going on, I feel MS is on thin ice here (everything looks fine until it's simply not anymore).

Alifatisk 4y ago

This is why I use Windows only for games, nothing else. They have little to no respect to their users because they no we have almost no other options (except macOS). When the day I am able to play the majority of my steam games on a Linux device, that's the day I say goodbye to Windows.

dahwolf 4y ago

Windows is incredibly broken and yet miraculously its power is that it works. My exotic mix of apps work. Games work, new ones and 20 year old ones. All peripherals and hardware combinations work, or have a way to make them work. There always seems to be a path towards success. Years or decades of muscle memory fueling resistance to change, corporate lock-in, game compatibility...that's how Microsoft can get away with almost anything. Should Apple want to, they could get the ultimate revenge by reversing the lost PC wars. And actually dominate the laptop/desktop market. They have the hardware, software and resources to do so. But it won't happen, it would require too many non-Apple moves, like wide compatibility, very long term legacy support, low margin products.

stby 4y ago
Ironically, macOS already shows an error message when an account is not using iCloud. Using both macOS and Windows 11 on an almost daily basis, they are really not that different when it comes to nagging users. Both show full-screen displays on startup from time to time where they want to change some settings (activating Siri, using Edge as default browser, ...), try to sell additional services, make you use an online account, and come with a lot of bloatware.

prepend 4y ago

I tried to do a google search in incognito mode and got a bit pop up first asking if I wanted to sign in for better results. A later session did the same thing. I don’t like how companies are interrupting flow and trying to force logins.

nokya 4y ago

I for one am very glad that they are doing this: the more they insist on forcing people to create accounts the more they get people interested into switching to alternatives. The sad (and quite ironic) thing with Microsoft is that while it is a company that is pretty much liked across the world, its managers keep doing their best to generate distrust and disdain amongst whoever actually owns a legitimate license of Windows.