3 ms·

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 Micr

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.
    - CatWChainsaw 4y ago
      Thank you for going to the trouble of making a throwaway for possibly just this comment. I'm aware that employees currently don't have a lot of power, and of course consumers being wrangled with dark patterns means they don't have a lot of power either. Getting confirmation that the unpopular decisions can be laid squarely at the feet of executives does allow one to hold out hope for a more equitable future for consumer electronics.
- theknocker 4y ago
  [dead]
donmcronald 4y ago
> Anyone who works at Microsoft brave enough to comment...? What would they even say? "Yeah, we think our users are stupid and we don't respect them, so we use dark patterns to dupe the suckers into giving us PII and $$."? It's intentional deceit by Microsoft IMO. It's the same thing with OneDrive. If you don't set up OneDrive you get nagged by the "security" center that your files are at risk because they're not "backed up". However, OneDrive isn't a backup. It's sync and, if you factor in files-on-demand, can end up being the only copy of users' files. I wouldn't consider the only copy of my files a "backup", but most users don't understand, so Microsoft is happy to stretch the truth (aka lie) to get people using OneDrive so they can convert them into subscribers.
- ok_dad 4y ago
  Cloud storage is a de-facto backup for 95% of computer users. Most of them have a versioning system or time-travel system to see old versions for a few weeks or a year. I used OneDrive for a while and they also have a nice system for detecting encryption malware, and will notify you if it detects that a ton of regular files were deleted and then a bunch of new encrypted files were added. It's not the worst service in the world, and it does act as an effective backup for most cases for most users, especially considering that it takes no time at all to setup. A super reliable backup system is a hard thing to keep up with for most people, and you can't usually just set it and forget it like you can with cloud storage.
  - donmcronald 4y ago
    It’s ok if it’s secondary storage / sync, but with files on demand you lose everything if Microsoft bans you and most users don’t understand the risk. Microsoft is encouraging them to do something risky and using the security center to do so.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
Anyone at Microsoft with integrity left a long time ago. All that are left are those willing to implement stuff like this because it pays the bills and don't really care enough about users to even bother with malicious compliance. It's why Windows 10 will be my last Windows.
npteljes 4y ago
What would you expect from them? From a product perspective, there's incentive to push for this, from a developer perspective, they get paid to work on the software. That's all there is to it.

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.
  - CatWChainsaw 4y ago
    Thank you for going to the trouble of making a throwaway for possibly just this comment. I'm aware that employees currently don't have a lot of power, and of course consumers being wrangled with dark patterns means they don't have a lot of power either. Getting confirmation that the unpopular decisions can be laid squarely at the feet of executives does allow one to hold out hope for a more equitable future for consumer electronics.
theknocker 4y ago
[dead]

donmcronald 4y ago

> Anyone who works at Microsoft brave enough to comment...? What would they even say? "Yeah, we think our users are stupid and we don't respect them, so we use dark patterns to dupe the suckers into giving us PII and $$."? It's intentional deceit by Microsoft IMO. It's the same thing with OneDrive. If you don't set up OneDrive you get nagged by the "security" center that your files are at risk because they're not "backed up". However, OneDrive isn't a backup. It's sync and, if you factor in files-on-demand, can end up being the only copy of users' files. I wouldn't consider the only copy of my files a "backup", but most users don't understand, so Microsoft is happy to stretch the truth (aka lie) to get people using OneDrive so they can convert them into subscribers.

ok_dad 4y ago
Cloud storage is a de-facto backup for 95% of computer users. Most of them have a versioning system or time-travel system to see old versions for a few weeks or a year. I used OneDrive for a while and they also have a nice system for detecting encryption malware, and will notify you if it detects that a ton of regular files were deleted and then a bunch of new encrypted files were added. It's not the worst service in the world, and it does act as an effective backup for most cases for most users, especially considering that it takes no time at all to setup. A super reliable backup system is a hard thing to keep up with for most people, and you can't usually just set it and forget it like you can with cloud storage.
- donmcronald 4y ago
  It’s ok if it’s secondary storage / sync, but with files on demand you lose everything if Microsoft bans you and most users don’t understand the risk. Microsoft is encouraging them to do something risky and using the security center to do so.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago

Anyone at Microsoft with integrity left a long time ago. All that are left are those willing to implement stuff like this because it pays the bills and don't really care enough about users to even bother with malicious compliance. It's why Windows 10 will be my last Windows.

npteljes 4y ago

What would you expect from them? From a product perspective, there's incentive to push for this, from a developer perspective, they get paid to work on the software. That's all there is to it.