And people really need to stop expecting that paid products won't show ads. From the POV of the provider, not showing ads would mean leaving money on the table (you likely won't quit paying over just an ad here or there). On top of that, as a paid customer, you self-identify as a real person with disposable income, making yourself much more valuable a target for advertisers.
But.. I still get winrot, and my dev environment drives me mad. I've been working on a laptop since covid started, and my dev machine is a VM on the laptop, so it's a nightmare.
At home I run NixOS with a Win10 VFIO setup for games. Both Linux and Windows at home are drama-free, but I don't abuse my home computer nearly as much and it's much more powerful than the work laptop.
- The Start Menu shows "suggested apps" by default
- On first install/boot, the Start Menu is preloaded with about 10 sponsored apps, and many of them install automatically even if you don't click them.
- These sponsored apps have a tendency to reinstall themselves _even after you just uninstalled them_ if you haven't rebooted your computer at least once or twice after first boot up.
- Microsoft Edge ads appear in the Taskbar at times, Action Center at times, and sometimes when you are changing the default browser to Chrome, and sometimes even after Chrome is default.
- Windows Explorer occasionally advertises OneDrive.
- Most built-in Windows Apps like Weather, News, and Sports contain lots of built-in ads.
- The Mail app comes with an "Upgrade to Office 365" button always visible.
- Cortana occasionally pops up by itself to ask if you want to use it. And there are ads in her search results and "suggested apps" from her for you.
- The default Lock Screen, "Windows Spotlight," occasionally advertises games, Microsoft's latest political agenda, or Bing when your computer is Locked.
- Office 365, on new installs or accounts, has links to _every web app_ on the Start Menu by default.
- When adding a user, Microsoft will hide the ability to create a Local account not linked to a Microsoft account under, like, 3 pages of advertising for why Microsoft accounts are awesome.
- The new Settings app has a new header that is in A-B testing right now, which (among other things) has a big obvious link _in the Settings app_ to Bing/Microsoft Rewards.
- Microsoft Edge has, by default, the entirety of MSN as your New Tab page and your Homepage. Plenty of ads on that, and worse, they serve ads from Taboola and Outbrain. Those types of ads with "You won't believe what celebrity XYZ..." or "Take this 2 minute quiz to learn..." kind of junk. (In fact, all of the built-in Windows apps seem to serve Taboola/Outbrain. You just want to check the Weather!)
- If you are not signed into OneDrive, OneDrive will inform you of this fact _every single time_ you log in with a giant error message.
- If you are not signed into Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Teams will inform you of this fact _every single time_ you log in with an Office 365 Sign-in dialog. It frequently fights with OneDrive to see who can make you sign in first.
- The operating system will sometimes randomly pop up with messages from "Windows Tips." While (theoretically) making the experience nicer for new users, the actual Tips app is pretty barebones and really motivates people to click a button to "Learn More"... using Bing search.
- If you want to use Google as default search engine on Microsoft Edge instead of Bing, that is a.) extremely nested deep in the UI and hard to find, and b.) if you do manage to find it, there's a three-section ad explaining the "benefits of Bing."
And there's still stuff I'm forgetting.
> Taboola is the world’s largest discovery platform. Through our exclusive partnerships with many of the world’s top publishers, we serve 360 billion content recommendations to over one billion people across the web each month. You have probably seen our feed serving recommendations on sites like Bild, Bloomberg, NBC News, Le Figaro, MSN, The Independent and The Weather Channel.
Yup... MSN is right there in their list of customers! They mention "native ads" quite a bit on their front page. What are native ads you ask? They tell you:
> Native advertising is the concept of creating ads that are so cohesive with the page content, assimilated into the design, and consistent with the platform behavior that the viewer feels the ad belongs there.
and:
> As consumers become more resistant to traditional forms of advertising, Fortune 500 brands and consumer startups alike are allocating bigger budgets towards content marketing and non-disruptive ad formats.
Translation: People are starting to become resistant to the overt brainwashing, so we're making the brainwashing covert.
I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.
How do the people that work in these places sleep at night?
Like Donald Draper said: "On a bed made of money!"
* After every version update I'm prompted to finish setting up my account by converting my local sign in to a Microsoft account. The wizard itself only gives options to go through with it or be reminded in 3 days. Disabling it is a checkbox in notifications settings page "Suggest ways I can finish setting up the device to get the most out of windows". This to me feels like deliberate disguising of the true purpose of this setting
USB installed without a key Windows 10 Pro N, which comes with less bloatware - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
when installing do not sign up for an outlook.com account, create a local agent account
Go into settings and tweak as much privacy stuff as I saw - as found here https://fix10.isleaked.com/ & https://techlog360.com/stop-microsoft-spying-windows-10-priv...
downloaded o&o shutup10 to tweak more privacy settings, could have probably done this without the reg edits - https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10
registry edits to -remove the activation watermark -https://www.techolac.com/computers/how-to-remove-activate-wi...
wallpaper can be changed by right clicking on an image and setting it as background wallpaper - cool wallpaper site https://interfacelift.com/wallpaper/downloads/rating/any/
downloaded Open Shell for further customization https://open-shell.github.io/Open-Shell-Menu/
added show desktop to taskbar https://winaero.com/blog/add-the-show-desktop-button-next-to...
Also, your link to "Windows 10 Pro N" just leads me to the download page for Windows 10 -- I don't see any option for "Pro N". Smells like dark patterns to me.
By right-clicking on the button you can hide it completely.
macOS has the same issue but is not so far down the road.
It’s one of those tropes that keeps getting repeated but on the occasion I have said to someone “show me these ads” it turns out to be a recommendation in the Microsoft Store or something. Apple does those too in its App Store.
I often hear this, but I've never seen an ad (except MSFT's own ads getting to to try its new Edge browser.)