Microsoft Is Spamming Windows 10 File Explorer With Ads For OneDrive Storage (digitaltrends.com) 281
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Digital Trends: While Microsoft is addressing some other complaints about Windows 10 in the upcoming Creators Update -- such as privacy concerns over the data that's being transmitted and issues regarding how the operating system updates itself -- the company seems intent on retaining Windows 10's advertising functionality. In fact, it has apparently been adding OneDrive commercials to File Explorer, ExtremeTech reports. Basically, you might start seeing a new promotion for OneDrive when you're perusing your file structure in Windows 10. OneDrive is baked into Windows 10 and can't easily be uninstalled, and Microsoft wants to make sure you know that the 5GB of free OneDrive storage can be easily upgraded to significantly more space. Turning off the OneDrive advertising isn't without consequences. You can go to the View menu in File Explorer, then Options, and select "Change folder and search options." In the next window, select the View menu, then scroll down to and uncheck the "Show sync provider notifications" option. Note that while this should disable the OneDrive ads, it will also stop you from seeing potentially important notifications from OneDrive. The report notes that, while these OneDrive ads aren't new, "they seem to be showing up more often for more people."
Windows 10 (Score:5, Insightful)
The Facebook of operating systems!
Re:Windows 10 (Score:5, Insightful)
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Microsoft will soon buy Facebook.
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They only need to gain control, not get the whole package. Or they just need to control the owners.
Stranger things have happened.
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Don't laugh. Soon there will be the equivalent of an MS "Facebook" baked into Windows 10 too.
Can just imagine it now - you're working on some code, a document, or playing that awesome game when all of a sudden a window pops over your active one and shows you all the food and kid pictures of other Windows 10 users around the world with the request that you "Like" them.
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Not seeing a big difference with the Microsoft Account they try and shove down everyone's throats since Windows 8. They already have buddy lists in the form of the Contacts section. A instant messaging/VoIP platform, Profile pages, a news portal with MSN... All they need is a front-end site that is more social-focused and they would be there.
Re:Windows 10 (Score:5, Insightful)
Its NOT a operating system, its a operating SERVICE.
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"Microsoft will NEVER put ads in the rest of the OS", they said.
Windows fanboys LIED.
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FreeBSD, Hackingtosh, or Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
So my friends, which one of these should i look up, and suggest me Linux distros.
I'm gonna VM them to try them out and completely purge Windows 10 from my life.
Re:FreeBSD, Hackingtosh, or Linux (Score:5, Interesting)
I downgraded my win7 to 10 just before the cutoff date for free upgrade, so I had the option of 7 or 10 later on. After trying out 10 for a while, I just decided that it was a joke, and that it was becoming more of a joke as time went on, and started dual-booting to linux mint cinnamon. ~6 months later and I don't ever boot into my windows partition even to play games. If you want a windows 7 replacement, Linux Mint Cinnamon is your best bet.
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I downgraded my win7 to 10 just before the cutoff date for free upgrade, so I had the option of 7 or 10 later on. After trying out 10 for a while, I just decided that it was a joke, and that it was becoming more of a joke as time went on, and started dual-booting to linux mint cinnamon. ~6 months later and I don't ever boot into my windows partition even to play games. If you want a windows 7 replacement, Linux Mint Cinnamon is your best bet.
Cinnamon is great, My wife loves it after refusing to use W8 after a month. Works well with touch screens too. I've been using Ubuntu Mate recently, since I can run it on my regular computers as well as a RP3 I've been playing with. On either one, the regular user can get used to it in minutes. For the OP - many of these Linux Distros use "Live CD's" or Thumb drives, so you can boot off them to see if you like the interface. As well, have a internet connection going on the computer you install on.
Note
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BSD FTW! Probably PC-BSD as an easy start...
http://web.pcbsd.org/ [pcbsd.org]
As for shill above wanking on about "losing your windows skills"...don't worry, if you're a normal human being I'm sure you can learn new things while still retaining your old knowledge, especially if - like many - you regularly work with both.
So - duh - you actually become MORE valuable on the job market!
Being working well for me for over 30 years now...
Try Apple also, based on BSD so under the hood it's not too unfamiliar. Used Macbook Pro
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THAT is the BEST thing you could do for yourself.. Run Virtualbox on your Windows system and try different Linux distros till you find one you like, personally I like Kubuntu, KDE and Ubuntu, but your tastes may vary.. Once you're happy with it and are somewhat familiar with it, yank that Windows bandage off.... back up your data, install that Linux distro to the machine and just blow away Windows.. I did that nearly 7 years ago and now I sit back and laugh my ass off at all of the stories I see on the inte
Re:FreeBSD, Hackingtosh, or Linux (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been using Ubuntu, Fedora, and OS X for the last 8 years here. Haven't had a windows laptop for any more than the first 2 months I was here when I got the okay to wipe it. about 60 Dev's here, all use OS X with only a few that use Linux.
It greatly depends on your job. Your seriously not going to miss out on much... and it's Windows, it's not like it's that hard to figure it out if you really need to.
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Your parents don't count.
Also only wear Nike shoes... (Score:5, Funny)
Here's some more tips to improve your career chances -
- don't forget to learn all about football so you can fit in round the water cooler.
- it doesn't hurt if you can at least pretend to like the same cookie cutter women as everyone else so you can join in the wolf whistles
- on social occasions only drink branded beers. A whisky chaser is OK, but cocktails are definitely out
- acceptable hobbies are 5 a side football, jogging and perhaps martial arts (but nothing obscure - stick to karate or kick boxing)
- only wimps do lunch. A sandwich at your desk is ok
- remember to always put down work colleagues, especially if the boss is around
- the boss is always right and will respect you telling him so
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Re: FreeBSD, Hackingtosh, or Linux (Score:2)
How do I block this stuff? (Score:3)
with win10 home edition, is it even possible to stop this from happening at all? Some obscure registry hack somewhere?
Re:How do I block this stuff? (Score:4, Informative)
Windows 7.
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OOSU10 is good, so long as its developers keep up with the "whack-a-mole" changes that MS keeps throwing in.. Something that you or OOSU10 turns off today can very likely be turned back on tommorrow, ESPECIALLY if its one of the spyware aspects of 10.. ANYbody who places ANY trust in Microsoft has seriously misplaced their trust... I used/supported MS products for 20 years as a sysadmin and when I retired I decided I was DONE with anything MS...
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RTFA and change the settings. I've never seen a single advert in Windows 10. Sure the defaults are annoying but all of them respect the settings to disable "Occasionally show suggestions in Start", and when you remove that get Office program that shipped with every version of windows since XP then you don't get those adverts anymore either (it was funny watching the outrage in Windows 10 as if this is something new).
Problem with this setting here is it's a push advert from the OneDrive server. If you disabl
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Re:How do I block this stuff? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not (yet) true, but we're getting there. It is almost less hassle by now to get your favorite programs to work in Linux than to get them to work the way they're supposed to in Windows.
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than to get them to work the way they're supposed to in Windows
Run the installer then click the shortcut in the start menu. You're not doing Linux adoption any favours with shitty hyperbole. People read the first part of your comment and think "oh Linux must be getting easy to use", then they get to the second part and think "ahh scratch that, just another person talking out their arse".
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https://getfedora.org/ [getfedora.org]
That isn't meant to be offensive by the way, I just literally gave up trying all the different registry tweaks and obscure utilities meant to bend Windows 10 back into the shape of something usable and found that I don't miss much of anything. You might have a Windows app you need to run, in which case you need to keep searching through that morass and hope there's a way to turn it off (hint: usually the answer is either "no" or "it'll take quite a lot of work and be reversed on the next update anyway").
I recently tried the latest fedora and was far from impressed. They actually managed to take away even more basic configuration options and dumb the interface to the point of non-usability vs previous time I tried it. I was now being denied the ability simply to change basic attributes such as fonts and sizes.
Unless of course you are willing to search for obscure CLI commands to install different window managers or configurators outside the reach of normal people.
Then there is the issue of the update mode
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Might as well just email your docs to the TLAs (Score:2)
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I don't understand why the TLAs don't just sponsor a free cloud backup system; it could even be encrypted, using one of the possibly back-doored encryption standards. People would love it.
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The local cache could be encrypted in place, but use their cloud to decrypt!
I jest, but in seriousness I trust them a lot more than I trust MS. They gave us SE-Linux and things like that in the past. I guess it all depends which team they assign to the project, if you get something that helps you or the other guy. That's better odds than MS gives!
I fail to see the problem? (Score:3, Informative)
"Note that while this should disable the OneDrive ads, it will also stop you from seeing potentially important notifications from OneDrive."
Who the hell uses OneDrive and why should anyone care about "potentially important notifications" from a spammer?
What is the business model again? (Score:2)
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Microsoft don't seem to know.
Au contraire. Microsoft knows full well. It's an expensive Sadism & Masochism platform where you pay to be abused.
You will bend over, get anal-raped with a spintered stick, and beg profusely for a larger bat. That has always been the mindset of Microsoft customers. But for some reason, they think that a gaping huge butt hole is somehow normal, and that a normal sized sphincter is a sign of a crazy person who hates Microsoft for being "successful". They think that if they just give Microsoft the ben
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They know full well, you don't. The "free" version of the OS is for people to be exploited for ad revenue. The "pro" version of the OS is to exploit businesses who are worried about the information that might be leaking out to Microsoft on a constant basis.
Incidentally they also don't care what you want. You might not find it acceptable but Microsoft has enough money and government favor that they simply don't HAVE to care what you want. They could plaster Windows 10 with ads from top to bottom and there wouldn't be a precious thing that you could do about it.
It is irrelevant what Microsoft thinks, how much they "care" or what they believe they can get away with.
All Microsoft needs to do is continue to create sufficient market incentive for credible alternatives to Windows. The rest will sort itself out.
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Simple: The ONLY way to win with Microsoft is to NOT USE anything Microsoft...
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Windows 10 Pro is not what I'd call a professional version. It's like the home version with some added features, including more control over mandatory updates. You have to go to Windows 10 Enterprise for that.
Apple (Score:2, Insightful)
Say what you want about Apple, but they would never do shit like this.
Re:Apple (Score:5, Informative)
Say what you want about Apple, but they would never do shit like this.
You mean like Apple Music constantly asking me to subscribe when I just want to play a local music file on my phone? Or the constant nagging to enable icloud services?
When you're given an OS or OS update for free, expect upselling.
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For the Apple Music thing, I had the same thing happen - I suspect it was reenabled as part of an iOS update.
Go into Settings - > Music -> Show Apple Music. That should fix it.
Even Google doesn't do this (Score:2)
For all the "but Google!" BS, on Android I've never been spammed on my home screen or in apps that are a part of basic phone functionality. Any of the ad-supported apps I've installed are upfront about it.
The more I read about Windows 10's bullshit, the more I'm glad I dodged that bullet. When Windows 7 dies, my last Windows partitions will get nuked or else isolated from the net. I already run Ubuntu+Cinnamon on my important desktops.
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Say what you want about Apple, but they would never do shit like this.
Back when QuickTime was a required plugin for the Internet, before you knew it on your Windows PC, they had shoveled Safari and iTunes into what was supposed to be a "security update".
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Every time I open Mail on my Mac it pops up a complaint because I haven't enabled iCloud syncing. If you don't think Apple does shit just like this it's only because you have already accepted Apple's version.
Mebbe do a little research? You can get rid of that.
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WTF are you talking about -- every answer I've seen tells users who have chosen to use iCloud how to make requests to re-login go away and every answer says some variation of "just login to iCloud again." Which is completely useless for people who do not want every damn thing on their Mac syncing data up into a cloud service.
I'm talking about I don't get any notifications about iCloud, nor do I use it. Enjoy it since for some reason, it is impossible to be rid of.
For you.
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But ... it's the same problem. Sure you can hack your way into a relatively clean install of Win 10 (or anything else for that matter) if you hang out on forums, ask questions, poke around and spend the time.
The point is - you shouldn't have to.
Oh well,
Sic Transit Gloria Mundi - Tuesday is usually worse.
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Say what you want about Apple, but they would never do shit like this.
Not true, practically every time I start chrome up pops an advert for safari, even though I have disabled every "notification" setting I can find.
I have never seen this. Do you have screenshot?
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Say what you want about Apple, but they do not do shit like this YET.
FTFY
No, Apple won't be quite that crass. They are pretty obnoxious about logging into iCloud. And the debacle that is you-really-can't-get-away-from -Photo suggests that they're working on it in a different fashion.
The days of an OS just going away to allow you to get work done appear to be one of those tales your grandpa will tell you.
Ads everywhere (Score:5, Funny)
Leela: Didn't you have ads in the 21st century?
Fry: Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio, and in magazines, and movies, and at ball games... and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts, and bananas and written on the sky, and in Facebook and Windows 10 File Explorer. But not in dreams, no siree.
Win win for me (Score:2)
If I turn off sync notifications, onedrive, which I don't use, will stop bugging me completely?
My solution has 0 drawbacks. (Score:2)
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The anti-telemetry market. (Score:3)
"...Note that while this should disable the OneDrive ads, it will also stop you from seeing potentially important notifications from OneDrive.
Er, important notifications?
If I don't intend to use OneDrive at all, I'd love to know what the true impact is of disabling yet another advertising "feature".
With the amount of shit going on with this OS, I can already see a market for a dedicated corporate firewall appliance that updates its anti-telemetry ruleset about as often as an A/V signatures.
Onedrive breaks LOCAL file access (Score:4, Interesting)
I had to uninstall one drive for multiple clients yesterday because every time they tried to open a local file they received 'the file is corrupt' due to issues with microsoft's cloud.
Just exiting wasn't a good enough solution to the problem.
When the addons break LOCAL functionality when there are issues with the cloud - that's just ridiculous.
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...but they've also been spamming the damned taskbar with ads for Edge lately.
A feature that obeys the setting you set to not show ads on the start menu. Seriously just fix your damn settings. There is no spamming to people who don't want to be spammed. No need for a registry hack, some obscure right clickery, just click the window thingy, click the gear thingy, click personalisation, click start, and turn off the setting to show suggestions.
It really isn't very difficult.
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Nope, I'm saying it's your fault for not doing basic research about something that is "pissing you off" and you need to "close it to make it go away".
There's another way to prevent it from even occurring. Not figuring this out is your fault, doubly so since it was covered on Slashdot.
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MicroShit (Score:2)
"Windows 10, the most advanced advertising system, errr, I mean "operating system" we've ever released!"
Android, too (Score:3)
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2007: Linux is a far better OS. You buy Windows and it doesn't even come with Office.
2017: My Samsung tablet came with Office. OMG THE BLOAT!
completely incorrect (Score:2)
Actually it's under programs and features now and can be uninstalled in seconds.
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Sorry state of computing today (Score:2)
I'm at the point where I'm now just exhausted from seeing news like this, which is probably what they've been trying to accomplish in the first place.
Our choices are:
Use Google's os and get fucked over for privacy. The lackluster choices for decent desktop applications means that Chromebooks continue to be nothing more than glorified physical web browsers that are useless without always-on internet, for the foreseeable future.
Use Microsoft's OS and get even more fucked over by privacy, cause they can sipho
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They seem to think a $4000 computer is a disposable appliance like a toaster, and if you don't like it... well......
This is true, and well said.
Use Linux, and have complete control of the OS, but the level of maintenance and knowledge required (even today in 2017), is still several levels beyond any other OS, with no guarantees that even basic functionality that you take for granted in other systems will work. While improving, general driver support is still dubious, and you may as well forget about using the latest shiny if it uses a new chipset. Desktop software ubiquitous in other OSes flat out don't exist, and the OSS equivalents are... lets be honest here... crap. Even 'flagship' software like Evolution is inexplicably lacking so much polish, that you start to wonder why you bothered to install Linux in the first place.
So yeah... having seen computer history unfold over the last few decades, it honestly seems like things are getting worse, without any sign of that trend changing.
This is not true. I have been running Linux for years now (mostly Debian and derivatives) and there is virtually no maintenance involved. Knowledge? I have one of my co-workers running an Ubuntu laptop from System76 and he does everything he needs with no problems. I have my sister and niece on a laptop running Debian with LXDE and they have no trouble. Both of these people called me last week asking "How do I hook up my printer on this Linux thing?" I said, plug it in and o
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That's the thing though... It's at a point now where it works just fine for basic use cases like that, but as soon as you try to get slightly more complicated, then boom. Taking so much as a single step outside the average distro's simple use cases is almost guaranteed to require you to start editing config files, or doing all sorts of other esoteric contortions.
I have a Linux box at home that I am using as a Kodi box. One distro, come hell or high water, wouldn't let me configure 5.1 sound through the SP
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Strange. I've used Ubuntu for quite a few years, and found it excellent for someone who wants a Unixy environment and doesn't want to put in system admin work. I've found the desktop software available to fully suit my needs.
YMMV, of course, and the fact that I've been using Ubuntu doesn't mean other distros aren't just as good or better. (As I implied earlier, I'm kinda lazy, and haven't tried others).
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Thunderbird is fugly, and cumbersome. I can't remember for sure anymore, but I think there were issues trying to get it to connect to LDAP and CalDAV as well.
Regardless, it doesn't matter. I've bit the bullet and gone back to Mac cause I have work to do and Linux was getting more in my way than helping me get my job done.
GOOD! (Score:4, Insightful)
If you are still using Windows 10 after all the terrible shit that's already come, you have earned this.
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In general, the games I want to play are not available on other OSes, and I have to run Visual Studio at work, so I'd rather have the matching software at home. (They give us an MSDN license, so it doesn't cost me anything extra.) My old W7 laptop kinda died, and what they had to replace it with was W10.
experiment (Score:2)
"Let's say a mobile OS is a desktop OS!"
"Let's remove the start menu!"
"Let's make UAC do ridiculous things!"
"Let's force updates and reboots whenever we want!"
"Let's dump advertisements in weird places!"
As an aside, I could probably make a killing by writing an ad-blocker for the OS...
Re:Die, fscking adverts, die! (Score:5, Insightful)
its amazing; they charge full price for win10 (now; the free ones were just a gimmick to get their 'adoption numbers' up and to hook people into this one-way trip) and yet, they also send ads to you and you can't really opt-out, either!
either you make the o/s free and then people MAY be ok with ads; or you charge your normal full price and you KEEP THAT SHIT OFF OUR SYSTEMS.
every few years, the 'evil one' becomes apple and then MS and then apple and now back to MS again.
glad I'm a linux user and admin. I have choices that many users refuse to allow themselves.
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If you look at the screenshot, they even fuck you over on the "1TB" of storage space they are trying to sell you. Windows uses power of 2 sizes for RAM and storage, but with OneDrive you only get 0.931322574615478515625 TB because they are using power of 10 sizes.
Microsoft need to pick one. And it needs to be powers of 2, because my PC does not have 8.589934592 GB of RAM.
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they also send ads to you and you can't really opt-out, either!
Yes it's very difficult to opt out if you don't feel comfortable changing a setting offered up to you by the computer.
Ads? Never seen one.
Re:Die, fscking adverts, die! (Score:5, Funny)
They're a public corporation with one goal: maximizing profit. Full stop.
You don't need more than one period at the end of a sentence.
Their obligation is to produce a product that extracts as much money as possible from Windows users. Period.
Really, you don't.
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Maybe, but if he douches that thing any harder, he'll be on my period!
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TL;DR: Microsoft is under NO obligation to produce a product that doesn't incorporate advertising, spying or other "evil" things. Their obligation is to produce a product that extracts as much money as possible from Windows users. Period.
It's funny, it used to be understood that businesses and corporations existed to provide a valuable good or service for people. They traded that good or service for money. Am I now to understand that a company's only obligation is to make as much money as possible, regardless of their utility? Does the largest software company in the world, whose operating system most computer users rely on, really have no responsibility to their customers? That seems upside down to me. Who is serving whom here?
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Microsoft is under NO obligation to produce a product that doesn't incorporate advertising, spying or other "evil" things.
Depends on the jurisdiction. The European Union regulates privacy, consumer protection, and competition more strictly than the United States of America does.
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Re:TANSTAAFL (Score:4, Interesting)
Ok, ok, I want to pay! Sell me a version of Windows 10 that doesn't suck!
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Yup. How's a hoover like a PC running Win10?
Turn them on and they'll suck.
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Turn them on and they'll suck.
Tell that to my girlfriend...
It sounds like you don't know how to turn her on.
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I do NOT want a free lunch, I want a nice OS and I'm willing to pay for it. Sadly, Microsoft is no longer interested in selling a nice version of Windows to people. Also, while they may tweak a few things now and then it's pretty clear what I want from Windows (basically an updated version of 7, with an UI adapted to mouse usage, no ads, no forced Microsoft services and no spying) is fundamentally opposed to w
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I thought I was clicking on something in the Explorer window accidentally to make that window show up. But I tried following the instructions in TFS and the setting that should let me turn it off isn't there.
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Oddly enough I use Visual Studio (community/freebie) to write personal programs and CloudDrive never kicks on when I start that...
I have no plans on using CloudDrive.
Using a free could service to hold important files is rather like asking a street bum to
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Get compatible Windows 7 hardware and you are good to go, Asus Z170 will work well and its fast.
Even God forbid Win 8.1 isn't too bad if you get Classic Shell.
It took Windows 10 to make Windows 8.1 look like a really good option. Only downside is marketshare is small compared to 7 (great for old hardware) and 10 (only going to get bigger.)
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For the Authentic Text interface experience, I like Far Manager [wikipedia.org] which is under a modified BSD licence.