They always give you a scare since it looks like Windows is booting into a recovery environment. Just had one, and the only options I had were “Remind me in 3 days” and “Continue”.
It’s always about Microsoft wanting you to set Edge as your default browser as well as trying to get you to log in on a Microsoft account and you have to individually decline every suggestion since you can’t just skip the fucking thing.
Piss off, Microsoft
I pretty much only use Windows at work (not my computer) and just the fact that it tries to shill shit like ChatGPT to you in the log-in screen sickens me. It’s like a free-to-play mobile game except it is an operating system which you’re theoretically supposed to pay $200 for. Then I have to look up all sorts of registry hacks just to do things like get the ordinary right-click menu back in the file browser because there isn’t even an exposed option for it.
And it still doesn’t even have
grep.This periodic ‘let’s set up your computer all over again’ thing is a dark pattern designed to prey on people who aren’t computer experts. There are people I care about, family and friends, who are not computer experts. The modern Internet and software landscape is incredibly user-hostile. When I set up computers for people, I take a lot of care to configure it in a way where these people aren’t going to get sucked into some vendor lock-in, leak personal information all over the place, or get fooled into paying for Acrobat just so they can rotate a PDF. This delayed reconfiguration wizard is designed specifically to undermine this sort of careful hardening effort. It is bad enough that you need to spend four+ hours after installing Windows just to make it usable by changing dozens of settings and installing dozens of libre software packages to do things which ought to be included in a standard OS distribution.
Speaking of shilling, back when Starfield came out Microsoft snuck in ads for Starfield into the “Windows spotlight” lock screen photo rotation. That stunt really pissed me off since it’s one of the Windows 10 features I actually like
I hate the slimy and overbearing way MS tries to keep hoisting its browser and MS accounts on you. I also hate all the useless clutter they shove into the OS interface, like MSN news, both in the Start Menu and as a separate taskbar widget. Don’t need shitty celeb gossip, thank you
I’m not a Windows-head (never owned a Windows PC), but MSI’s seem to quack and waggle like a package. If you mean “they don’t have a central repository”, yeah, unless if you count their appstore or whatever they call it.