>ads on the lock screen

You understand that you approved these ads when you set up windows initially, and that they can be removed with the flick of a switch in the lock screen settings?

They aren't even the default now, right?

My windows machine does not display them, and I don't remember even being asked.

IIRC the wording wasn't "let us display ads", it was cloaked in some deceptive language.

I don't remember the exact wording, but it was something akin to, "Show Microsoft's images on my lockscreen" or somesuch similar.

It wasn't clear there might be ads there.

I actually have that option turned on, and it's exactly what it says on the tin. Pictures of landscapes/buildings/etc... that you might see in some mid tier gallery and a link to a short description. It's bland, but marginally more interesting than the basic lock screen.

Hi. PM for Bash & Windows Console here:

Glad you're digging Bash & WSL :D

May I ask which Win10 build you're running. If you're on Win10 AU (build 14393.x), you're not yet seeing the huge raft of changes that we've been releasing weekly to those on the Windows Insider program.

Key among the improvements that will be released broadly when Windows 10 Creator Updated ships (ETA spring 2017) include: * MANY improvements to Bash/WSL enabling MANY more dev tools, platforms, an tech to work even more smoothly, plus fixes for networking features inc. ifconfig & ping, traceroute (incoming). Also adds ability to invoke Windows exe's from Bash and vice-versa. * Lots of DPI fixes including many fixes to correctly scale desktop apps and pop-up dialogs (https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2016/12/07/annou...)

HTH.

FWIW, the "ads on the lock screen" thing is a wee overblown. Microsoft is the single-party provider of any of their so called "suggested content". Aka, you saw Tomb Raider not because Square Enix paid to be on the lock screen, but because Microsoft was trying to push that you can get AAA games in the Windows Store. The Surface has been up there, I think they put a movie-related one up once or twice, again, referring you to their own Movies app. And they have no animations, moving bits, or arbitrary code.

They're not targeted ads, so they're not using a data profile on you to power them or anything like that. I wouldn't be surprised if they know how many screens displayed them, but there's not a lot of interaction tracking you can really do with a static lockscreen. So it doesn't have the sort of privacy implications of normal advertising either.

So, while you may not like their choice of wallpaper because it is related to a product they are releasing, it's not really much more egregious than the fact that it downloads daily wallpapers on the lockscreen to begin with: It's all stuff selected specifically by Microsoft. And as others have pointed out, it's really easy to shut off.

>you saw Tomb Raider not because Square Enix paid to be on the lock screen, but because Microsoft was trying to push that you can get AAA games in the Windows Store

I would still consider this to be an ad.

I never said it wasn't still an ad. But as I explained, it has essentially none of the problems that are associated with ads. Ergo, complaints about it are more that it offends your special snowflake sensitivity against ads, than that there's an actual problem that needs to be addressed.

My operating system showing me ads is inherently a problem.

In what way? Assuming you've already decided you're okay with rotating wallpapers on your lockscreen downloaded periodically (the only way in which you'll see these "ads"), what is the detrimental effect on your operating system?

We can both agree, I'm sure, that your OS tracking you is a clear problem, and I'm not unable to be convinced on this one here, but I'm going to need to see a line of reasoning on how it harms you.

An ad is inherently antagonistic. It doesn't add to the product I'm using (in this case the operating system); its only function is to try to trick me into buying more things.

Are you suggesting the mere display of a wallpaper from the latest Tomb Raider game is capable of deception? Of "tricking" you into buying it?

Is it going to trick me in particular? Probably not; I'm not likely to buy that type of game anyway.

Would it be using my computer as a marketing tool to promote a product? Yes. A more obvious example might have been if it said something like "Drink Coke".

It's a banner ad, but now bundled automatically into your machine. Even if banner ads didn't track you, I'd still block them. There's a reason marketers pay for them.

Not any more than "upgrade to Windows 7 Pro to access these features" that they've had for years.

I'd consider that an unacceptable ad as well, but I've never had 7 Home.

>> The "terminal", PowerShell, is slow to launch, path completions are crawling.

Powershell often seems to hang on startup when it's actually already up and running. You're left looking at an empty terminal, waiting for a prompt. If that happens, you can try pressing enter, at which point you'll most likely get your prompt, er, promptly.

Yeah, I've noticed that HiDPI support is basically a roll of the dice in 3rd-party Windows software.

They fixed the DPI thing in the early build. At least for the native stuff, like device manager.