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Microsoft made a lot of changes in Windows 10 that helped it put the mistakes of Windows 8 in the rear view mirror. Not all of Microsoft's ideas are good, though. The company has shown a tendency to get a little too casual with how it promotes its services within Windows. You might even call these "ads." Microsoft would, of course, dispute that description. Some of these things that look very much like ads have started showing up in File Explorer. Specifically, Windows 10 has started nagging people to buy a subscription to OneDrive.
Microsoft's OneDrive cloud storage service is built into Windows 10 and tied to your Microsoft account. Everyone gets 5GB of space free, but you can pay to get as much as 1TB for a single user. That also includes an Office 365 subscription. Depending on your needs, that might be a good deal. That does not necessarily mean you want to be made aware of said deal while browsing your files.
The ad appears as a banner at the top of File Explorer, reminding you that OneDrive and Office 365 can be had for a mere $6.99 per month. You can take Microsoft up on the offer or dismiss it. It may just reappear at a later date, though. Some users reported seeing this a few months ago, but the incidence has ticked upward in the last week or so. This is not the first time Microsoft has crammed ads into the Windows UI — there are the lock screen ads disguised as backgrounds, notification ads for Edge, and a strange pop-up ad for Microsoft's personal shopping assistant in Chrome.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Sunday March 12 2017, @10:01AM (1 child)
But the fundamentally evil software merchant has said that there will never be a "next" version of their crap. Instead the existing crap will be "upgraded" by patches pushed on you bit by bit for the indefinite future.
The advantage of this (to them) is that at some point the "upgrades" will start to cost rent money. If you don't pay it you will get different "upgrades" that will be even worse, probably eventually turning your screen into a big button that just says "BUY NOW". Either way, the "upgrades" will increasingly turn your PC into an advertising platform and purchasing device as fast as they believe Joe Sixpackcan tolerate it without rioting. What you think as an individual won't count - you had your chance to turn off "updates" while you still could.
There are many other advantages to them of course. Eg : They will not need further big media advertising campaigns to sell the next major version, and they will not need to employ a big development team to make those new versions; they will only need to make occasional cosmetic changes and maybe security updates.
(Score: 2) by gottabeme on Sunday March 12 2017, @06:39PM
> you had your chance to turn off "updates" while you still could.
This points to the worst problem: what happens when you have to replace a computer or disk drive and they no longer authorize installations of the older versions (cf. Apple and iOS)? I guess you give up using whatever software required Windows x and doesn't work in WINE. Or do you try to find a crack that works around the authentication (for the software you already paid for!) and risk being infected with a rootkit?
The future seems dark.