I have to use a windows 11 machine for work, and it genuinely surprises me how terrible it is. I don’t understand the opposition to local accounts - if I’m working somewhere with public WiFi/capture portal, I have to use my phone as a hotspot first.

The PIN log in seems to roll a random number and decide each morning whether it is going to work or not.

I also got a laptop with 11 on it for gaming. So much spyware I’ve had to uninstall, configuring anything is a nightmare. I was trying to adjust my mouse sensitivity/figure out why the scroll wheel is either 0 or to the moon, but even when you dig into the control panel, half the settings are missing.

I also had to turn off my WiFi and google commands to make a local account, because otherwise Microsoft accounts are mandatory.

Every change seems to make the experience actively worse for the user.

Finally they are actually using there brains. They need to make Windows 10 as bad as possible to get people to switch.

Everybody should learn about pihole.

Every time I see crap like this makes me even happier I ditched it a year and a half ago. If you switch to Linux and started with mint but don't like it, give PopOs a test drive. It's been flawless for me.

On machines where I have to use windows I run start10 to replace the start menu with something a little more bearable. I imagine there's a FOSS equivalent but I bought a license years and years ago so I've never bothered to search.

These ads are what finally got me to pull the trigger and move to Linux. Arch is great, zero issues to report.

Anybody remember Litestep (http://litestep.net/)? It was an open source shell alternative to the default Windows shell.

If you're a person who prefers to type commands than click through menus then you should try the "run" program in the "powertoys" suite from Microsoft.

It a launcher program that's superior to Start in every way. You can type in plain English system commands like "shutdown"; a search that actually works; you can pass queries into your browser's search engine; and of course launch programs by typing in their names. You can even enter entire registry addresses to open regedit at the desired location.

This is a complete replacement for the Start Menu.

If you MUST use windows for work or something, at least install OpenShell. Otherwise, use Linux. It's so easy to switch for most use cases. Even gaming on Linux has come a very long way.

Queue everyone downgrading to Windows 8 in 3, 2, 1.

I can't believe they'll put this on windows 10 pro.

Hold on let me check my start menu.

Oh this is gnome lolololol.

Is there a way to pre-emptively block this? Something in hosts.txt? Registry?

The very first day I see those ads in my Win10 will be the day I uninstall Win and go Linux.

"lol" -- classic shell

I'm not partitioning my system, I'm getting a clean slate.