Microsoft Reportedly Broke Windows 11 By Injecting Ads (xda-developers.com) 147
Yesterday after releasing new Windows 11 builds in the Dev and Beta channels, Insiders reported that their Start Menu and taskbar were crashing. As it turned out, it was caused by Windows 11 delivering ads, as was reported by Daniel Aleksandersen, who dug into the issue. XDA Developers reports: First of all, Microsoft did publish a fix. [If your PC is in an unusable state and you're reading this in an effort to get out of it, the article includes a step-by-step guide to fix the problem.] The ad itself is for Microsoft Teams, and how it's integrated into Windows 11. As with most of the ads that are injected into Windows, this should still pop up as a notification even if you have all notifications turned off.
While we know the cause, the bigger question that Aleksandersen dives into is how the Windows 11 shell can be so fragile that ads can crash it. Windows in 2021 has a ton of components in it that have to grab content from the cloud at any given time, from the Bing lockscreen wallpaper to Windows Update to advertisements that come from Microsoft. It's pretty wild that when one of them isn't functioning correctly, this could happen. There are clearly two issues here. One is that a cloud service can break Windows 11. The other is that Microsoft is injecting ads into the OS in the first place, a sure pain point for many. One thing is for sure; Microsoft isn't going to scale back on its advertisements in Windows any time soon. Instead, it's just going to fix the glitch, and if that makes you draw a parallel to Office Space, that's fine too.
While we know the cause, the bigger question that Aleksandersen dives into is how the Windows 11 shell can be so fragile that ads can crash it. Windows in 2021 has a ton of components in it that have to grab content from the cloud at any given time, from the Bing lockscreen wallpaper to Windows Update to advertisements that come from Microsoft. It's pretty wild that when one of them isn't functioning correctly, this could happen. There are clearly two issues here. One is that a cloud service can break Windows 11. The other is that Microsoft is injecting ads into the OS in the first place, a sure pain point for many. One thing is for sure; Microsoft isn't going to scale back on its advertisements in Windows any time soon. Instead, it's just going to fix the glitch, and if that makes you draw a parallel to Office Space, that's fine too.
why does an OS need ads (Score:5, Insightful)
comment not needed, but seriously -- what the shit?
Re:why does an OS need ads (Score:4, Informative)
Re:why does an OS need ads (Score:4, Interesting)
With facebook I have adblock. I never see ads there because the browser will block for me. So who blocks the microsoft ads? Do I have to put adblock on my router?
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You have to uninstall Windows.
Re: why does an OS need ads (Score:2)
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Nope (Score:2)
Using Windows Firewall to make sure only outbound traffic from your user account can reach the proxy, while als
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Or just don't get win11. I doubt there would be any compelling feature to even slightly motivate the change. I don't see a reason to go beyond 7, really.
I'm still using 7 for some things, but the reality is that there are security implications and it's frankly a bad idea.
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Frankly, I'd rather help some Russian mine crypto on my rig than Microsoft constantly screwing around with my OS, program preferences, file associations, etc. (and Satya Nadella watching me fap)
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Or just don't get win11. I doubt there would be any compelling feature to even slightly motivate the change. I don't see a reason to go beyond 7, really.
I'm still using 7 for some things, but the reality is that there are security implications and it's frankly a bad idea.
If you use ad and script blocking, you've protected yourself fairly well. And it seems that most of the big issues have been there since W2000 days.
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From TFS: " As with most of the ads that are injected into Windows, this should still pop up as a notification even if you have all notifications turned off."
This is why I will NEVER, EVER, FUCKING RUN ANY VERSION OF WINDOWS HIGHER THAN 7. EVER. ADS in the OS? SCREW THEM. Seriously!
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An OS needs ads because the OS is designed for people stupid enough to pay for an OS.
Those people need ads. Lots of ads, because their television has desensitized them.
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If you saw the presentation video from Windows 11, made by Microsoft, one of the main characters at MS dribbled on and on about Windows 11 being your home.
Strangely enough I have never willingly received ads there. Did not hang ads on my walls either. In NL lots of houses have a front door close to the street with a letterbox sized hole in it. When coming home from work it was more or less an automatic move to pick up whatever ads were delivered and dump it in the trash can next to the door, never even look
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The absence of ads is not evidence of absence.
The problem is that Microsoft is lagging behind in finding customers who are willing to pay for the ads to be shoved in your face.
That plus the lack of good will on the Microsoft side. Would you want your company's ads to be "branded" as Microsoftian?
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The absence of ads is not evidence of absence.
The problem is that Microsoft is lagging behind in finding customers who are willing to pay for the ads to be shoved in your face.
That plus the lack of good will on the Microsoft side. Would you want your company's ads to be "branded" as Microsoftian?
I wonder if the ads will continue whtn the switch to Windows as a service and you have to pay by the month to see them?
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Interesting question. How greedy is Microsoft?
Actually, I see a market opportunity for a low-priced version of Windows 11 with the most ads and a middle-priced version with the ads you actually want to see. Oh, wait. That version would implicitly call for sharing some of the personal information back with the person, and Microsoft is unlikely to agree to that kind of deal. (Ditto Facebook and the google, of course.)
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Maybe an exaggeration, but my browsers all have 3 add blockers, uBlock Origin, Disconnect and Privacy Badger. Digitally delivered ads are also thrown in the digital thrash can. If the site I visit stops working because of that ad-blocker combination, then too bad, but it will be the last time that site is visited.
That's one of the most fascinating things about sites telling me to turn off my adblockers. Either going i with ad blockers, or leaving and never returning I don't see the ads, So they fail either way.
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And if I really want their content, I can just turn off style sheets, scroll past some icons and stuff, and there it is!
If that doesn't work, it means the site also doesn't work with accessible browsers, and I know it isn't anything important.
Re:why does an OS need ads (Score:5, Insightful)
Beyond that, why does an Os need to access the cloud constantly? No! If I am not using the internet myself at the moment, and no upgrade is going on then the OS should do *NOTHING* on the network. Other applications can use the net, or maybe a vital subsystem (antivirus downloading new signatures for example), but the OS itself should not use up a valuable resource that does not belong to it.
Using the network is potentially very expensive for the customer - both for the cost of using the net, but the possibility of leaking private data or opening the way for malware.
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This sort of MS crap might force me one day to only enable the internet in a Linux virtual machine, while keeping the Windows host far from Microsoft, clouds and other threats. Or at least hide it behind a whitelist based firewall that blocks everything by default.
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Beyond that, why does an Os need to access the cloud constantly?
To use it's cloud features. OSes have different features. Don't like those features, don't use that OS. It's really not complicated. Windows 10 uses cloud integration for a variety of things including syncing, sharing between devices (I don't know of anyone who has just one computing device anymore), data storage, and security (such as anti-randsomware protection).
If you find these features offensive then you can turn them off here: http://www.apple.com/ [apple.com] or here: http://www.debian.org./ [www.debian.org]
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Beyond that, why does an Os need to access the cloud constantly?
To use it's cloud features. OSes have different features. Don't like those features, don't use that OS. It's really not complicated.
Unfortunately, a lot of people don't have much choice. I have one program that I have to use that is only on Windows. So I have a laptop that uses that program and that one only. Seems like a waste of a really good workstation laptop, but whatever.
I do much prefer my Unix/Linux machines.
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Do you use that approach also with other software? E.g. if you use Firefox and it provides Pocket [mozilla.org] you drop the whole browser? Or if MS Office provides document password protection and you do not use it, you drop the whole Office? Of if Excel offers export to DBF? If I do not like a feature, I do not use that feature. And the feature does not get used. It's not really complicated.
Re: why does an OS need ads (Score:2)
Didn't you just say that Windows was already installed..?
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Didn't you just say that Windows was already installed..?
Hah! Cymbal crash..
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True that.
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Beyond that, why does an Os need to access the cloud constantly? No! If I am not using the internet myself at the moment, and no upgrade is going on then the OS should do *NOTHING* on the network. Other applications can use the net, or maybe a vital subsystem (antivirus downloading new signatures for example), but the OS itself should not use up a valuable resource that does not belong to it.
Using the network is potentially very expensive for the customer - both for the cost of using the net, but the possibility of leaking private data or opening the way for malware.
Unplug or get one of these whne you aren't using the computer: https://www.amazon.com/Power-B... [amazon.com]
A little air gap can stop a lot of bullshit.
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I'm kind of glad the MS are turning their OS into a total stinking turd, it makes it easier to make the jump to Linux + proton.
Adware used to be very shunned, Win10 onwards is adware, what happened? Too many techies drinking the kool-aid.
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comment not needed, but seriously -- what the shit?
You are the product. Thing that is funny is the Microsoft users will soon be claiming that ads are good!
Assuming Microsoft fixes the standard crashes.
You can't make this stuff up.
Will Win11 even run without ads? (Score:5, Interesting)
Say I wanted to blackhole its bullshit with pfsense or a pi-hole (or whatever flavor of local DNS filtering I so chose). Will Win11 even function? Classifying it as an operating system seems tenuous if it can't operate without constant cloud fetches. It's not a true OS then, it's an OS / web portal / terminal hybrid bastard child with the flaws of both and the benefits of neither.
I wonder if Microsoft is setting themselves up for issues if they don't clarify how net-access dependent their new glided child is, and somebody with limited or no net access tries to deploy it.
Unlikely (Score:2)
If you didn't want to make an online account you had to disable your network connection when you installed windows 10.
Re:Unlikely (Score:4, Informative)
Windows 10 allows you to avoid the online account, and it's not that difficult when I did it. They may have changed it later to be more difficult possibly. But for me, I just skipped the part where it asked for account details - and instead of the obvious choices "get a new account" versus "enter existing account details", there was non-obvious "skip" option. I think it involved going back one step to where there was a "skip" choice.
(this is similar to how I avoid getting 2FA on my phone, I choose the option that says something like "ok, ok, live extremely dangerously if you want even though all we want is a pint of your blood")
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All the OEM installs I've done have a dark-grey-text-on-blue-background option - "I don't have internet" - while displaying the various network interfaces the installer found and asking me to connect.
It puts up a screen of FUD, telling me I'll miss out on all this great stuff, then reboots and continues with the install. Prompts for a local account, then finishes the installation.
I leave the ethernet cable disconnected, just in case.
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Windows 10 allows you to avoid the online account, and it's not that difficult when I did it. They may have changed it later to be more difficult possibly.
Yup, they've made it a bit of a PITA later, including kinda trying to trick you into it. I get weekly attempts to coerce me into finishing my setup as well.
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On the latest build as of yesterday, I was able to make a local account. You have to wait until it asks you to sign on to your Microsoft account, then unplug the network. If you try to unplug before that, it won't let you continue. But if you do it at that point it will let you create a local account. You can alternatively set up with a Microsoft account, and then fall back to a local account after install.
How convenient! Windows has always been a fight, but they are starting the battles with the user pretty early. Seems like an omen.
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they started down the road to this shitshow by tying the start menu search to bing back in windows 8.1 (i believe?) it's definitely present in 10 though. you can side step it via the registry; for now.
And yeah, back when we were using viasat for our internet, the start menu would hitch with each fetch.
MS, what are you guys doing? not a single thing you've done since about windows 7 had made your OS any better or more consumer friendly. you're progressively making it worse with each iteration. stop copying
Re: Will Win11 even run without ads? (Score:2)
Re: Will Win11 even run without ads? (Score:4, Informative)
Well, if you have to either work in an enterprise, or play a significant subset of decent computer games, Windows may be your only option. Try applying for a job when your resume says "won't use Windows, not even for email".
Re: Will Win11 even run without ads? (Score:2)
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It is a fantastic perk of being a physicist.
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Try applying for a job when your resume says "won't use Windows, not even for email".
It's not as hard as you think. Many business are getting frustrated with lost productivity from unwanted system behaviours. Running the business is their main priority, not running Windows. Now they have advertising to deal with. Today we have more options than before.
Companies that only run Windows are going to be at a disadvantage more and more. Ever wonder why Microsoft is supporting Linux more and more as time goes by? It's also starting to support Android on the desktop.
Most corporate stations don't ne
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Try applying for a job when your resume says "won't use Windows, not even for email".
It's not as hard as you think. Many business are getting frustrated with lost productivity from unwanted system behaviours. Running the business is their main priority, not running Windows. Now they have advertising to deal with. Today we have more options than before.
Companies that only run Windows are going to be at a disadvantage more and more.
As well, the army of support people that you have to have to support the POS OS.
Productivity losses and staff costs sink any advantage. It was always hilarious - our Mac group did a shitload of printing and scanning tor Windows users. They had printers and scanners, but they didn't work half the time, and the Support people had a huge backlog of appointments.
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The problem is that many companies have standardized on Outlook, and then a Microsoft Exchange Server backend, which makes it very difficult to use any other email client. Similarly, Word and Excel can have issues outside of Windows. Heck, the MacOS version of Office has serious issues at times with Windows Office.
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You're talking about 99.99% of all businesses, including all the giant corporations. They're all going to fail and be replaced by mom-and-pop Linux users? I don't think so. At least wait until the Year of Linux on the Desktop before making that claim.
Whelp (Score:5, Insightful)
The ad itself is for Microsoft Teams, and how it's integrated into Windows 11.
Two *more* reasons to not "upgrade" to Windows 11 ...
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Two *more* reasons to not "upgrade" to Windows 11 ...
Implying that this feature is any different from Windows 10 which already has it?
I get it. MS post, must switch off brain in order to post. Version+1 bad and all that.
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It's cute that you think you have a choice in the matter. If your PC is new enough you'll wake it up to login one day and discover Windows 11 now owns it.
None of my systems will pass the current Windows 11 requirements checks, they're all older.
They run Windows 10 and Linux just fine and I'll switch to just Linux when Windows 10 support expires.
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It's cute that you think you have a choice in the matter. If your PC is new enough you'll wake it up to login one day and discover Windows 11 now owns it.
None of my systems will pass the current Windows 11 requirements checks, they're all older. They run Windows 10 and Linux just fine and I'll switch to just Linux when Windows 10 support expires.
I have a quite decent 3 year old computer that fell off their cliff. soomething about the processor, but I think it's really because I run local user account. At first I was a little pissed, but now I'm quite pleased.
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Me too. I have zero need (or want) for a MS cloud account -- ever.
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Last I checked this kind of worm cannot infect Linux machines.
Microsoft must be leaning in... (Score:5, Insightful)
Srsly. They've got to have multiple teams working on "This OS just doesn't suck enough yet. C'mon guys, how can we really fsck this thing up, but good?"
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Srsly. They've got to have multiple teams working on "This OS just doesn't suck enough yet. C'mon guys, how can we really fsck this thing up, but good?"
Well it was an advertisement for Teams so...
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Arrrrrre yoouu ready to Liinnnnnnuuuuux?! (Score:2)
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Durs it has a dursktop yit? Wut yir?
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Xubuntu Linux is my main OS now. Private use only, so I won't make claims about enterprise use.
For the everyday tasks like web surfing, e-mail and office stuff, I'm happy enough with Mozilla, Thunderbird and Libre Office. All of them native Linux versions. There is also Chromium for Linux, the open source version of Chrome. It lacks some Google services though.
For Windows programs in general, it is worth trying if they run under WINE. WINE is a compatibility layer that "translates" between how programs us
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If it ran the programs I paid for that I don't see equivalents
Have you tried them with WINE yet?
Anecdotal I know but I've had really good results with it with the few software apps that I couldn't find Linux versions for as well. and the others I use in a virtual machine (virtualBox).
I quite Windows as my main OS 10-12 years ago.
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I use Mint on one of my old computers. It runs an old scanner and printer that I don't want to toss. At work, I use Windows because that's what they give me and I run some proprietary apps. My employer is trying to push away from using commercial apps like Tableau for data visualization if favour of R with packages since the execs just want prinouts anyhow.
At home, I have a couple of Macs. The big seller features for the Macs are the Mini's size and Air's battery life and light weight. That being said, the
Try? (Score:2)
Listen to Yoda: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
TPM 2.0 (Score:5, Insightful)
They need hardware security built into their OS so that they can uniquely target you with ads.
The next step is getting you to buy stuff through Bing Shopping.
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They need hardware security built into their OS so that they can uniquely target you with ads.
The next step is getting you to buy stuff through Bing Shopping.
No TPM is about piracy and locking down filesystems and bitstreams, they've always wanted to turn bytes into property and enforce property rights on electricity.
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They need hardware security built into their OS so that they can uniquely target you with ads.
This has to be the dumbest and most braindead non-sequitur post I've ever read on Slashdot.
Please, do tell us all how TPM 2.0 is necessary for an OS to pop up a notification to the user telling them how good Teams is. I really want to understand how you can make something so simple so complex.
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That post made my day BAReFO0t. Hint: Look up Dunning-Kruger. You will find that my post (asking a question) is not an example of Dunning-Kruger. Mind you *your* post, so confidentially writing absolute garbage is.
Here's a hint for you captain stupid:
1) You don't need TPM to lock down the OS, and Windows 11's TPM doesn't secure *any* OS files beyond those needed for booting.
2) The "ads" can be disabled via a toggle switch in the Start Menu settings.
3) Telemetry can't be protected by TPM since it can be bloc
I want an OPERATING SYSTEM (Score:5, Insightful)
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not an ADVERTISING PLATFORM. Morons. I liked Windows until 7. Now it's Linux baby, all the way.
Sing it, brother. Windows 7 was the gateway drug to Linux for me.
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I liked Windows until 7
Why did you like Windows 7? I for one specifically remember an advertisement for Internet Explorer 10 and Internet Explorer 11 in Windows 7.
It seems what you really like is double standards and rose coloured glasses.
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Re:I want an OPERATING SYSTEM (Score:4, Informative)
However, Windows 10/11 is specifically built to push ads at you all the time whether you want them or not.
[Citation Required]. In fact there is a simple setting you toggle in the start menu that disables all adds. The only thing which remains are post-update once off adverts which are no different to Windows 7.
If you're seeing ads in Windows 10, may I suggest turning off "Show Suggestions Occasionally in Start" which is precisely the setting that MS uses for all this.
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If programmers turned evil (Score:2)
Windows 11 broke Windows 11. (Score:3)
adblock for windows 11 in XX days? (Score:2)
adblock for windows 11 in XX days?
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Just add various MS domains to the pihole blacklist.
Seriously, pihole is fantastic. I'm stuck on 8mbit DSL, and web pages load SO much faster when the ad requests are never serviced.
Pro-Arson ? (Score:2)
Instead, it's just going to fix the glitch, and if that makes you draw a parallel to Office Space, that's fine too.
Is the author, Rich Woods, suggesting arson as a way to deal with Microsoft?
Beta? (Score:1)
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Windows is just the same kind of bananaware as the rest of software today.
Microsoft is still Appleâ(TM)s star campaigne (Score:2)
I guess the Microsoft logic is simple - people pay for TVs and watch ads, now they can watch ads on the computers theyâ(TM)ve paid for.
I gotta go Linux next time (Score:2)
Office Space... (Score:2)
It's the printer... that damn printer.
Windows - you were warned (Score:3)
You were warned. Still using Windows? But muh games perhaps? You're stupid, there just isn't another word for it.
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You realise that these "ads" have always existed in Windows 10 and that only people too stupid to turn them off actually see them right?
No of course you don't.
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Yeah, any hobbies you don't see any benefit for are useless wastes of time. Photography? What, you don't like GIMP? Stupid noob, I hope you suffer with Windows!
Get bent.
I misread the title (Score:3)
Come on over to Apple (Score:2)
Win10 made me do it. It's really fine over here if you want a stable OS that runs Office, a lot of other software too, and actually lets you use it as opposed to Windows using you.
Nuke it from Orbit (Score:2)
this should still pop up as a notification even if you have all notifications turned off
Luckily the "never install Windows 11 on anything ever" plan still manages to avoid these notifications.
Every now and then a feel a small urge to try PC gaming again. Happily Microsoft is busy doing things to ensure this step is never actually taken.
*facepalm* (Score:2)
As with most of the ads that are injected into Windows, this should still pop up as a notification even if you have all notifications turned off.
Ho. Lee. Shit.
I don't think Windows 10 does this, right? Well, even if it doesn't, I'm sure they'll backport the feature.
*Begins aggressively slamming head into desk*
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Not only disk space. I recently installed windows 10 for a relative. System was unusable for first 30 minutes because it was downloading apps (candy crush, linkedin, weather, facebook, Xbox something?, etc...) Fresh install with local account, which was pain in the ass to create in the first place.
easy workaround: (Score:2)
just don't upgrade your 6th gen processor or your tpm-less motherboard, they'll do ok for the next five years and you'll be reasonably safe from this malware.
the REAL news (Score:2)
The real, and really, really, sad news, is that even by turning the OS into an ad delivery machine, people will still continue to use it.
I mean, wow. Ten or twenty years ago, that would've been barely fit for April 1st news. "Next version of Windows to include ads" - yeah sure, /. cut it out already.
What a pile of steaming crap. And that shit runs the IT world. At least I won't be out of a job in the forseable future (I work in IT security) despite 95% of technical problems being solved long ago.
Does this even help the bottom line? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not a Windows user myself, but I am curious in a sort of abstract way if this is even good business sense. Do the ads improve total revenue by that much? How do they measure the effect? Do they have any way of reckoning the negative impact?
From here it looks like Microsoft is shooting itself in the foot at worst, and making only a tiny contribution to the bottom line at best, but I don't have access to their sales charts and internal accounting. It's troublesome to me, even though I'm not directly affected, to think that this stuff might actually work. Troubling because of what it says about human nature and our culture in general.
The model I have in my head of a large organization like Microsoft is that it is divided into different divisions each one focussed on its particular job within the organization and not thinking about the big picture. Somebody out there sees a chance to get a little more revenue doing something that might actually generate revenue among a certain part of the customer base, without thinking about whether it alienates a different part. Maybe it's just that somebody has to think of something new to try from time to time to justify their existence in the company. Maybe they measure the effectiveness by how many people click on a link from the ad and some executive gets a promotion because more clicks happen and that's it, forget about accumulating bad will among the customer base in general. Maybe they just have a captive market and don't need to give a hoot about Good Will.
I guess it's time then... (Score:2)
...to block the ads at the router level for all of us.
Alternate headline (Score:2)
Bug was discovered in software that is in beta and being tested for bugs.
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Ads are bugs.
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Ads are bugs.
No. Ads are a feature. There's even a button to turn them on or off in Windows.
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A feature that's a bug. Not a bug that's a feature.
Ads are bugging me. Therefore a bug.
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Well the bug is in your head for buying the OS which included that feature.
A bug is only a bug if it is unintended.
Next year the year of desktop Linux? (Score:2)
Maybe next year is will finally be the year of Linux desktop domination! Who's laughing now slashdork? :P
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What's happening now is that developers purposely bork their games to not work on Linux (PUBG, Destiny 2,