I find this mildly infuriating, I only use Windows for work, I even personally purchased Windows 11. Local account and disabled as much as I could. I personally do not like Windows or Windows in general.
Well, now I do an update and they throw this up like I need to walk thru these steps (again). Not even a “Skip”/“Don’t remind me again”. Windows is not what it used to be and after disabling half the Microsoft stuff I’d expect not to be bothered again. It’s really a built in ad more then anything.
2023-08 Cumulative Update Preview for Windows 11 Version 22H2 for x64-based Systems (KB5029351)
Remind me in 3 days. That shit should be against the law. There should be a don’t bug me ever again option.
Try to uncheck “Suggest ways I can finish setting up my device to get the most out of Windows”/“Show me the Windows welcome experience after updates and occasionally when I sign in to highlight what’s new and suggested” in Settings -> System -> Notification & actions (Windows 10) or “Offer suggestions on how I can set up my device” in Settings -> System -> Notifications (Windows 11)
Linux user here. But, that will be helpful for many I’m sure. Nice
which distro?
Debian & Pop
Weird coincidence but this is also how you opt out of a time share condo!
Actual lol from me!
big if true
It’s a dark pattern microaggression.
Removed by mod
Windows is nagware now. Microsoft dared to imagine an entire OS on the Winrar model.
I wish they went with the winrar model. Winrar just nags you once when starting. Windows keeps trying to trick you into giving them your data and signing up for a subscription.
Don’t you compare windows to that time honoured and helpful software. WinRAR knows when to quit, and is free
So many comments shitting here and not giving helpful advice at all, so so fucking stupid. The best way to get ahead of this would be when the next time this pops up, press Shift + f10 and then type “OOBE\BYPASSNRO” easy and simple, takes only a few seconds and makes everything more seamless, such as no one drive bullshit etc…
Easy and simple
Dont forget to shit on linux afterwards for how difficult it is
Honestly I find constantly having to keep on top of disabling questionable windows features and bloat (knowing I’ve definitely missed something) more difficult and exhausting than just using linux. Linux feels way more “easy and simple” to me than windows ever has been.
I really didn’t think anything about linux before but the number of people on lemmy being so annoying about linux just makes me really dislike it.
Right? The top comments being people commenting just to laugh at the guy using windows on a work computer is grossing me out. They’re like the loud vegans for computers. Just like veganism I agree with a lot of it but the fan base (for lack of a better term atm sorry) is SO aggressively off-putting lol
Then delete system32 folder?
What are these instructions actually doing?
Idk how it works but if you type this on the console you will never get this window again.
press Shift + f10 and then type “OOBE\BYPASSNRO” easy and simple, takes only a few seconds
Not picking on you, that is actually really good advice and a neat shortcut I’ll be trying myself. I just think it’s funny all the reddit threads regarding Linux usage, someone will pop in with a simple commands to get whatever the user wants done quickly (Ex: Open the Console and type “sudo apt update” then “sudo apt upgrade” and you’ll be good!) and they get shit on with comments like “OMG! You have to Open a terminal to do anything! This is why Windowz rules and Linux is for fanboy dorks!!”
Btw, I dual boot.
I understand. I use Linux with dual boot myself and I know how great and free it feels to just use a terminal for everything. However, I cannot count how many times I have been frustrated when something just doesn’t work. Some software that doesn’t exist in apt is can be hard to install sometimes if you have to compile it yourself. And if you want to delete something that you didn’t install via apt?? Good luck with that. Linux doesn’t exist without its own problems. The use cases for both windows and Linux are very different. It doesn’t fit everybody
I’ll give that a try, thank you.
I believe this method was blocked. But it’s also not what the screen shot is. This is an update screen.
It worked on my machine. Also, why would they block it?? This specific command was definitely added by some Microsoft engineer, and not just for shits and giggles. There must have been some reason to add it in the first place, and certainly no reason to block it.
Sorry, missed your reply. I run the setup for Windows on a lot of computers. Last time I tried that command it wasn’t working. I used to be able to start the setup and once you got to the point of needing to sign in to a Microsoft account you could skip it. They removed that. Then this command you are talking about worked for a bit. Then removing the ethernet cable worked for a while, Microsoft closed that too. Currently I connect the machines to a network and attempt to log into an account, but mistype the password. This will give an error and allow a local account. Unfortunately these are machines for sale, so I can’t use a Microsoft account like they want. It’s a whole “thing”. However, if it’s your own machine, use Rufus to create a boot disk that will bypass the Microsoft account requirement.
Why would they block it? Because they want everyone to use a Microsoft account, and they have been getting more and more aggressive about it.
Edit: forgot to mention again, OP’s post image is from an update message and not initial Win 11 install. The command to skip the sign on is for OOBE, “out of box experience”. Aka initial setup.
For this screen not to come back, Settings notifications turn off the last three checkboxes
How did you learn this? Serious question, as I probably will be using Windows at whatever job I get. A huge part of what has made Linux so easy to learn is that there’s always documentation. There’s no secrets, even if it might be a lot of reading. Everything I learned about Windows I either bumbled my way into it or learned from someone else who was taught.
To be honest, you just have to Google things that you really want to fix. Genuinely just ask it how to make simple things simpler and you will find so much helpful stuff out there. If you feel some discomfort while using windows, know that there’s always a way to make something easier and simpler, you just have to find it
To be clear, I’ve been using Windows since I was literally in diapers [3]. Only this summer did I take the plunge and actually start using Linux as a daily driver. I generally know my way around a Windows system because of Googling things I don’t know.
My concern is because I have been using Windows as a “home” user, e.g. on non-enterprise systems, there’s going to be a whole bunch of stuff that I don’t know that I have no chance of finding unless I happen to know an experienced sysadmin.
IMO, Googling [1] things is often how I solve computer problems, but it’s a very strange way of working if you think about it. Shouldn’t our software tell us how to use it? At the bare minimum, software designed for use by the general public, including those who aren’t familiar with computers
It’s a bit of a strange response, “go to company A for information about company B’s products”. And yet, it is the response I unfortunately have to choose time and time again because Microsoft is too protective of their secrets, including apparently how to use their OS. Microsoft, who as a reminder is a business trying to convince me to keep buying their product, should be the primary source of information about their product.
Microsoft does have some online support, but they don’t have it at the level of detail that Linux does. What has really amazed me about Linux is that the various developers actually tell you how to use their software [2]. If there’s something not in the manual, they probably don’t know enough about it to have finished the documentation. In those scenarios, you can go make an issue on GitHub. As complicated as Linux has been to learn, it’s been a lot less “Google [1] it” and a lot more “read the docs”.
If you feel some discomfort while using Windows, know that there’s always a way to make something easier and simpler, you just have to find it
Well…no, actually. For example, if I want to replace the user interface, you cannot do that. You can change it cosmetically, and there are a few registry entries you can fiddle with, but if you want to throw out the whole thing and use a completely different desktop environment, you’re out of luck. I installed my copy of Debian with KDE Plasma, but I also installed LXDE as an option for the rare cases when I need all 16GB of my RAM. I also tried out XFCE and LXQT to give them their fair shake. The default for Debian is actually GNOME, which I knew from prior experience was not for me. Actually, I wouldn’t use a system where the only option is GNOME, so the freedom to choose a desktop environment (or none at all; e.g. window managers or the command line for the brave) was a precondition to my adoption of Linux.
Every single part of my system can be swapped out for something else. Even the kernel need not be “pure” Linux. For example, I do a lot of real-time audio computing, so I’ve been “shopping for” the best kernel for real-time audio. There are a few patched kernels specifically for real-time applications, although the default Linux kernel is quite good.
This is far from the only area where Windows locks you into a choice. Actually, it’s a lot worse than that; Windows (more accurately Microsoft) continues to lock me into choices because I have to limit my choices to those that work with Windows installations. They could add Linux compatibility to their systems (because the whole ecosystem is open source, they don’t need to reverse-engineer anything; just copy the Linux stuff!), but they choose not to do so, and instead insist on proprietary formats.
[1] I don’t use Google search anymore. IMO the only use case for Google search is when you are somehow required to use it. In the example above, I would never allow company A to be Google, because based on Google’s history it is clear that Google ought not exist. I often allow company A to be DuckDuckGo or an amalgamation of stripped results from SearXNG, but even then I think that the usage of company B’s products should be the domain of company B.
[2] It’s not perfect, but systematically it seems like more than an attempt has been made to document the various FOSS software components. For example, some of the more obscure KDE software have holes in the docs, which I have actually been running up against in the past few days. The rest of the KDE software has excellent documentation, and if you’re a Plasma user, it’s probably already on your computer. Remember, this is coming from a largely volunteer development force; compare that with the power and professional workforce of Microsoft.
[3] I have worked and played in every non-enterprise Windows OS from Windows 95 to Windows 10. I have used Windows 11 a handful of times but I’m not very familiar with it, besides the baseline familiarity that comes from working with NT systems in general.
What’s your point here? If you want to argue with me about semantics then I absolutely could not care less about it. Yes of course you can’t change shit, because windows is designed this way. It’s made this way for people who don’t know how to do things be able to easily Google their problem and find a step by step solution that is almost certain to work since windows ui doesn’t change a lot. Also, at this point googling is a popular verb which means “searching shit on the internet”. Use whatever browser you want, I use brave search and searx from my distro. Congratulations on successfully shitting on windows, like everybody else in this thread.
Of course Linux is better for most intents and purposes, but that’s entirely not the fucking point here. The point here is how to use windows better? With all the shit Microsoft does? And the answer is you search it on the internet, it’s just how it is and complaining about it and saying Linux does it better does not change anything.
If you have a problem in windows, for example one of the things I was really annoyed about in win11 was that whenever I searched something on the task bar, an internet result would pop up that will open bing on edge. I didn’t want that so I googled it (searched on the internet with brave search) and turns out that you can add a registry my that can disable all web searches from the taskbar! So Yay one annoyance fixed. There are hundreds of things like that which you can just search and figure out a way to disable a shit Microsoft thing or bypass it.
What I had originally meant was that in general, you can control a lot behind the scenes in windows, even if you can’t see it up front. You can shit on it all you want but being toxic to people and telling them to install Linux is obviously not the way to go. Gatekeeping is for idiots. Use what you want to use, do what you think is best for you, and I do what is best for me. From time to time I do use windows to play some games that don’t work on Linux yet, or use some software that doesn’t support Linux and I don’t want to spend hours trying to figure out how to install there. It’s efficient for me and that’s how I keep it.
Windows is terrible at a lot of things, and Linux is terrible at a lot of things too but those things are completely different and it is no use to compare as everyone’s needs are different. There is no one size fits all, there never will be.
Yeah just a bunch of Linux nerds on their high horse feeling smug. This attitude actively pushes people away from your platform, not towards it. If you want more people to use Linux the first step is NOT acting like a smug dick about it.
Exactly, the one thing you cannot do is force someone to move to Linux. They eventually do it on their own when they get tired of being shit on by Microsoft, or just see in general that yeah! This specific thing is gonna make my life so much easier! That’s why I did it and I understand why people wouldn’t want to switch to it, there’s nothing that we can do about it
I wonder whether the developers who wrote this script, did it in order to avoid these annoying messages by themselves
If it’s your own machine, I recommend running one of the Windows 11 debloaters.
I’ve moved all of my personal machines over to Linux (specifically Ubuntu). Windows just isn’t worth it anymore.
That’s a good recommendation, I actually did run a windows debloater/spyware before. This just happened to be snuck in with an update I guess? I should probably do it again at this point.
I wouldn’t use Windows if I didn’t have too…I do run Tails and Ubuntu as well but unfortunately 40hrs+ a week on Windows…it sucks.
You have to run it again after every major update.
Run the debloater every update. Some stuff in there is actual settings, but other stuff will be “repaired” by windows.
Also, a workaround to that screen (so far, at least) is to shut the computer down and start up again and it doesn’t return till next update.
Okay, nice! Good information!
Question: if you already don’t like Windows, I assume you don’t care about the new features that come with new updates. So I wonder - why do you update at all? Set everything up as you want it, remove all the hot garbage as you see fit, and disable updates.
Skipping software updates is not a good idea, let alone OS updates. Inbetween all the terribly annoying bullshit they insist on foisting off on people, they do provide security patches and so on.
Primarily for drivers and security updates.
You have a point, I could turn off updates and manually update as I need too but my frustration is that there are ads in the first place.
my frustration is that there are ads in the first place
Fair enough, a very good point.
Personally I’ve been using customized / debloated versions of windows for a couple years now and have not looked back. Every time I spin up a stock Windows VM I’m shocked how atrocious the experience is. Though I understand that a Windows ISO modified by an unknown third party can be scary to some.
I think I would trust an unknown 3rd parties ISO more then the stock Windows at this point really…
There’s been a pretty recent development in the Windows Customization community which released a new toolkit, essentially allowing you to write YAML-based scripts with custom instructions how to modify a live windows installation, which makes the process completely open-source and transparent. I can link some of the projects pages if youre interested to learn more.
How do you like the Snap store and snap packages being pushed on you silently when you try to install packages through APT? :)
Give them a break. They just moved from Windows, you just need to relearn to breath after that. Moving to another distro is a small step in comparison.
Not new to Linux, it’s literally what I’ve been dealing with for work for the last decade. I just meant that I moved the last of my personal machines away from Windows.
I have run into zero issues installing packages from other places. The snap store is a bit annoying but not a big deal. I’ve been on and off using Ubuntu since ~2005 so that’s why I went with it over another distro.
You want a broken Windows install? This is how you get a broken Windows install.
Speaking from experience here. I’ve done this on over a dozen different computers with zero issues over a three month span. It was part of a proposal for transitioning our company computers to Windows 11 while cutting out the junk. None of them had any problems running without Xbox services, Cortana, bloatware games, activity tracking, etc.
We ended up using Microsoft Intune for restricting Windows 10/11 to our standards. But that’s not really available for consumers and debloaters are safe to use instead.
The most infuriating thing about windows to me is the big stupid fucking red X on every single file, reminding me that I’m not currently storing my shit on someone else’s computer. Is there a way to remove that service from my computer entirely?
Uninstall onedrive
That’s what I did, it’s one of the few things that it does let you uninstall.
Disable Manage folder backup feature in OneDrive settings -> Backup -> Manage backup -> Stop backup on all folders, or toggle them off on newer version.
Eh, this particular screen is kind if misleading. You say you dont see a “skip” or “do not remind again” button, well that’s because those buttons are on the next screen(s) for each individual feature. I’ve gotten this screen a couple times, just click through and you can skip/opt out of all the features. It’s kind of silly, but I think the point is that they want you to look at each new feature individually.
Yeah, but nothing here would be considered as a “new feature” and each is an ad for a product that OP chose not to use during initial install. As such, s/he shouldn’t be reminded of them, especially not during an OS update and certainly not with an unskippable window. Yes, s/he has the option to skip each feature individually later, but this initial window is either a “remind me later” or a “do it now”.
To get into specifics of each item:
OneDrive has been around forever.
If OP customized his/her browsing experience, s/he clearly doesn’t want “Microsoft recommended browser settings” (which, by the way, is Edge with Bing search and with all telemetry turn on high).
365 has been around for a while, and this thing is pushing the subscription (by definition, an ad for a paid product).
Windows Phone app isn’t new, either.
Microsoft Hello has been around for about as long as Windows Phone app and features.
Then this screen itself is misleading, because it gives no indication that you don’t need to do the stuff. It should have the X to close the screen, like every other window that isn’t malware.
It should have the X to close the screen, like every other window that isn’t malware.
In other words, it’s designed exactly as intended.
It’s not your computer, it’s Microsoft’s. That’s the message I get from using windows.
In otherwords, it’s Apple now, but with none of the benefits.
It is literally not - they sell licenses to large companies, and individual users are only an afterthought.
Windows 10 is my last windows. When it’s no longer supported I guess I’ll have to learn to use Linux.
I’m not waiting for that, just waiting until I have a free few days to figure out linux.
Also abandoning Android for Graphene as soon as I get a new phone.
Enshittification advances ever onwards
It only takes like an evening. Go with Linux Mint and essentially you will be using your computer in a half hour. Everything else is the fun of discovering all the cool stuff that Linux does easier and more flexible than Windows.
Agreed. Linux Mint shows just how turnkey the user-friendly distros are these days. Even though it is not designed as one of the lightweight, speedy and efficient distributions for experts, it absolutely feels that way compared to windows. And that’s with windows running natively and Mint in a VM.
Can you elaborate on the cool stuff?
The terminal is essentially arcane magic, with bash scripting out of the box, this is big if you’re a programmer. Most Linux desktop environments have workspaces and tiling features which make workflow really easy and fluid. Something that Windows is only getting now on W11. Everything is customizable, so you will learn the meaning of the term “ricing”. Which is to make your desktop look as cool as possible, since everything from the fonts and icons to the color of the taskbars and transparency are 100% customizable. There are several rabbit holes you can choose to go into just on aesthetics. But then you have actual productivity stuff like learning your distro’s package manager, backup utilities, etc.
Just wrote myself a bash script that uses ssh to fork to background, authentication via key to an ssh server it creates; forwards to tor; tor OR proxies to socks5; creates a shadowsocks server and client, connects the client; and forwards to a remote socks5 server via ssh dynamic forwarded port.
This is my first real script.
Linux is bonkers.
I love it.
Also: Gtk is the way. Qt is not my friend.
Give us an update in a few months how that goes for you
Been on Linux for 15+ years and on graphene for about a year. It’s fine. Keep a backup (quarantined) Windows box for games but don’t use it much.
Keep a backup (quarantined) Windows box for games but don’t use it much.
The last vestige of my Windows install is a disk image that I haven’t touched in half a decade. The SSD it was on itself has long since been reused for something else.
Or you can use ShutUp to turn off a bunch of annoying shit that microsoft pushes
Is it open source?
You should probably start learning before your OS is out of support.
Windows 7 was my last Windows. Why wait?
You could try dual booting to make the migration a little less extreme. I started that around the time Windows 11 came out and realized about a year later I don’t use Windows for personal stuff anymore. Windows is now gone and I do not really miss it.
Pro-tip for dual booting Linux: make it the primary OS. Humans are inherently resistant to change, so you need to set yourself up for overcoming that.
If you shift over to Windows 10 LTSC you’ll get security updates until 2032.
You can prevent this. Click remind later then go to your notifications in the settings app. Uncheck “Suggest ways I can finish setting up” and anything else you don’t want to see.
I love that I have to go out of my way and follow online instructions to undo something that they forced on me in the first place. That’s customer antagonistic design for you.
*Complains that Microsoft gives you a way to turn something off.
Looks like you missed his point completely
Alternatively: You can prevent this. Use a different operating system.
This is the best option, I like Fedora
You meant GNU/Linux.
GNU/BSD or GNU/HURD would be fine, too. Or even something like ReactOS or Haiku, for that matter.
The important thing is that the OS respects you as the owner of the computer and does what you tell it to do, instead of trying to subvert your authority to serve a master other than yourself (e.g. the OS publisher or third-parties that want to colonize your property for their own benefit).
“No thanks, I’d rather complain that Microsoft advertising their other services in a totally configurable setting which I can disable is the same as the entire OS literally being an ad.”
Why do we have to take more time to disable this shit? We are not all.made of unlimited time. And yes “it only takes a few seconds”. Every time something like this shows up the seconds add up
Windows users are in an abusive relationship. It’s sad, but not unexpected, that some make excuses for their abuser.
Meanwhile when someone doesn’t want to switch to Linux or Firefox…
“Just install seventeen extensions bro, why do you need tab stacking anyways? It’s worth it to be FOSS to take three weeks to get your Arch install just the way you like it.”
You absolutely have the time, you just want to bitch.
If you hate being used by Windows so much, you really should try an alternative, unless you’re a professional that uses software that just can’t run on Linux at all, chances are you can get most of what you use a computer for working fine. In return you get freedom, privacy, choice, performance.
Or if you hate it but are too reluctant to change for whatever reason, that’s totally fine, but just say that. Don’t spread misinformation about Linux.
It’s worth it to be FOSS to take three weeks to get your Arch install just the way you like it.
Literally no one ever says this. Just use Fedora. Almost completely seamless. There’s a KDE version if you want to have the same workflow as windows without configuring anything. You don’t have to use firefox, brave or ungoogled chromium are FOSS too.
Slow it down a notch, I already use Nobara on two machines and have a steam deck running SteamOS. I’m all for open source, but the “why does windows show me annoying plebian features by default, it’s SOOOOOO horrible I have to look through and disable them manually it takes so mich time” feels kind of trite when meanwhile people complain about the time sink in learning a Linux install (even a PnP distro) is hand waived away as not a commitment.
It just feels hypocritical, like a huge blind spot in the community. They claim Windows is so hard to deal with on the most minor shit.
It’s not just about the inconvenience though. Windows is paid. It’s at least 100 bucks. It’s not even “free but you are the product” like Google drive or whatever. Yet it still abuses you, controls you and exploits you, and you have to do tons of workarounds for it to not get in your way. Most of them are always temporary, as a new update reenables everything again or directly circumvents the workaround you used.
If you are locked into the ecosystem, then I do agree that it’s annoying that people think moving to Linux is seamless. It wasn’t for me, it even cost me money since I had to buy an AMD gpu for things to work well + another GPU to passthrough to a windows VM and still use Clip Studio. But if someone only uses their computer for things that can be done seamlessly on Linux, and they genuinely dislike and are against all the bullshit Windows always does, it’s worth it to tell them there is a viable alternative, and what they heard about “you have to use the command line for everything meaningful!” or “everything breaks all the time!” hasn’t been true for years.
I guess I found the secret button to disable it, then. Because I haven’t had a single ad or bloatware style notification in a long time on my desktop. I’m sorry I just really think it’s overblown and basically a meme at this point.
I’ve had a lot of success with Nobara, it’s why I put it on my old recycle pile laptop from my last job. Not only does it just work from the get go but it has a lot of built in functionality for things like discord and game launches that I’d prefer not to spend hours messing around with on a Debian or Arch install.
Image Transcription:
The Windows 11 Set Up Wizard with the following text: Let’s finish setting up your PC Your PC needs to be backed up and connected to a few more Microsoft services to help you work more easily and securely across all your devices. Back up your files with OneDrive cloud storage Have peace of mind knowing they’re backed up and available across your devices. Enhance your web browsing experience Restore Microsoft recommended browser settings. Achieve more with a Microsoft 365 subscription Get premium Microsoft 365 apps, 1 TB of cloud storage to back up files and photos, and more. Back up your phone to your PC Access your phone’s photos, texts, and more, right on your PC. Sign in quickly with Windows Hello Securely unlock your device with a touch or a smile. Below are the buttons Remind me in 3 days and Continue
[I am a human, if I’ve made a mistake please let me know. Please consider providing alt-text for ease of use. Thank you. 💜]
Is there a way to put alt text in lemmy? I could see the benefit especially for screen readers. I could only see putting it in the content section right?
Mostly I’ve seen it in the text part of the post as part or all of the description/text.
Don’t support Windows. Just use windows activation scripts and run Chris Titus Tech’s Windows security and debloating script. If you can, you’re better off on Linux.
Local account and disabled as much as I could
2023-08 Cumulative Update Preview for Windows 11 Version 22H2 for x64-based Systems
Why are you running updates for beta testers, if you decided to disable as much as you could? Those “Preview” updates will install everything you’re missing and more every time, that’s their purpose.
Switch to stable updates only, and you won’t have that problem… or at least have it way less often.
They will definitely still have the problem.
PEBKAC error for sure
I literally do not have anything extra turned on, including the Insider Program has always been off. Other then automatic updates, so your guess is as good as mine as why “Preview” updates or otherwise would be pushed. It’s not that I’m enrolled in beta or anything.
That pops up on every feature update on win11. But you’re on the preview channel which is known to push and test experimental features. I’d suggest you unenroll your device if stuff like more ads for 365 or missing features for testing purposes bug you. Microsoft even regularly roll out one feature for a percentage of testers and take it away from the rest, just to see what happens.
The only thing I can think of is having it selected to automatically install the latest updates, I haven’t signed up or enabled anything else. Is that why its preview?
Then you’re either not remembering or you aren’t in it
Either way I’ve had this screen pop up for me too a couple times after updating but they never “added” anything, I don’t see them adding anything here either - just wanted to make that distinction to be fair to MS for the sake of convo only (not gonna forget the bullshit about that Sting concert.)
I understand, the only options I see is added from update or triggered by the update as I’ve never gotten this window before and it restarted to this screen like I had to do it.
Yeah, I understand just wanted to make sure people understood this wasn’t something new, and that this wasn’t necessarily getting worse. That’d put out false beliefs, which, end up muddying the real problems that windows does have
Completely agree.
Windows is actually right back where it used to be, to be honest. Getting pretty tired of the whole “ecosystem” tech philosophy.
Windows is bullshit
