Have to use Windows for work (I’ve asked), the ads have been getting worse and worse on my work laptop. Today got a game ad notification… That’s clearly too far, right? Like I have to clear notifications, so I have to see it

  • Nougat
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    20910 months ago

    That’s because your IT department hasn’t turned all that crap off with group policy.

    • Freeman
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      10 months ago

      Tthe problem is now if you have the store disabled basic shit, like the ability to open .heic files is broken or use stuff people want like sticky notes is broken.

      We turn off most of what we can’t but having the store enabled causes all sorts of stuff.

      Also windows 11 has ads baked in even with the store disabled. Plug in a Logitech mouse, get a pop up for their software. Open the picture viewer and get an ad to install some video editor that isn’t clear whether it’s a Ms product or not.

      No to mention basic things like copy paste and edit are now weird icons because I guess they think most users are illiterate.

      Most of the 11 UI changes are not for the better. Having to beta test it for work is frustrating and I run an IT shop.

      • Apathy Tree
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        2510 months ago

        Omg I loathe those icons. They are so much harder to use than words, cuz I still have to hover over them to make sure it’s the right thing.

        Windows 11, in general, feels so shit after being on Ubuntu.

        But I see Linux has decent touchscreen support now so as soon as I’m done at this job, that sucker is getting formatted 😈

        • Freeman
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          1010 months ago

          MS goes out of their way to make shit harder than it needs to be.

          For example. The store, they have a store for business where you can simply whitelist known apps buts it’s a PITA to setup AND they have been threatening to decom it for ages

          https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-store/microsoft-store-for-business-overview

          Want to add safety/security features like secuirty keys. Well if you do it on a non domain joined machine you can just sign into a m365 account to enable a passkey or yuibijey as a second factor.

          Want to do that in a business environment. Congrats now you have to deploy a windows CA and issue user certificates to tie to this. Even if you are signing the machine into m365 with ADAL.

          They go out of their way to add complexity and failure points.

      • @[email protected]
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        610 months ago

        Now that I don’t use windows anymore, I really want to see how crappy of an OS they can make it. It’s fun to watch.

      • @polarbear236
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        610 months ago

        Christ that explains why I can’t open pictures on my work pc, thanks

    • @[email protected]
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      2810 months ago

      To that I would argue why should IT need to waist their time turning that crap off. IT should be off by default.

      • Thorned_Rose
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        10 months ago

        It shouldn’t even be part of an OS at all. I haven’t purchased Windows in probably about twenty years but if I did I would expect that if I pay for software, it’s not going to come and try to keep selling me more crap. This is just one of the reasons I use Linux.

        • @[email protected]
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          410 months ago

          And people just get on with it and download these chappy things that turn things off in group policy editor, like u shouldn’t need to download an app to not get ads on something u paid for

        • @[email protected]
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          110 months ago

          Do you not purchase laptops? I have no option than to buy windows every 4-6 years along with the laptop.

          • Thorned_Rose
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            10 months ago

            We only ever buy second hand laptops. When our teen bought his brand new PC, it came installed with Windows. I asked the shop, when enquiring about customisation, if it could come without Windows but was told that it had already been installed and even if we opted to wait for one that wasn’t built yet, the mount of money they charge for OEM Windows is very little so we wouldn’t save much anyway.

            Outside of donating, Linux distros don’t cost anything so it’s not like paying for an OS on top of paying for an OS.

            • @[email protected]
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              110 months ago

              My recent purchase had both win 11 home and office pre installed. Most consumer laptop with decent spec dont give OS as option in my country.

              We are collectively paying for it to get that discounted price. Retail win 11 pro sells for 10% the price of a mid range office laptop without gpu.

        • @[email protected]
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          1510 months ago

          You’re not wrong, but there’s a million little things you only have to do once, and this is one more.

        • @[email protected]
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          1210 months ago

          My point isn’t how simple it is to turn off, my point is why is that turn on by default in the first place? Last I checked to join a Window’s domain you need a Professional/Enterprise version of Windows. This is software intended for a business environment not only that, it also costs much more as well. Yet here we are by default my Profession Windows install comes with Candy Crush and Game Pass ads. Great job Microsoft you have done it again.

          • conciselyverbose
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            610 months ago

            It’s fucking disgusting that it even exists on the consumer version bundled for $2 to OEMs with terrible computers.

            Let alone the premium versions.

          • Nougat
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            410 months ago

            This is the only argument I find makes sense. It would definitely be elementary for Microsoft to have those consumer features turned off by default in the Pro/Pro for Workstations/Enterprise/etc editions.

        • Riskable
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          710 months ago

          It’s fine as long as you turn it back on again afterwards. It’s a standard troubleshooting procedure.

    • staticlifetime
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      2610 months ago

      The fact that you need a group policy to turn this kind of garbage off is ridiculous.

    • @[email protected]
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      1310 months ago

      Yea, I work in a windows shop. All this shit is turned off for any device in our domain. No BYOD either.

  • Thrickles
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    8710 months ago

    Wife started getting these ads as well. Each time she complains I try to hand her my Linux USB drive.

    • Thorned_Rose
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      2410 months ago

      Keep trying! My teen recently bought his first PC. It came with Win11 and I offered to put Linux on it for him. He replied, “Nah, it’s OK, I’m not a programmer”. I was like… wait, huh? I don’t even know where he would get that idea from since the only programming I’ve ever done was websites and haven’t done that in years. Hubby doesn’t do much programming any more either. We game on our PCs… Email. Browse the interwebs. Watch videos. Discord… blah blah. Literally all the same shit our teen does and yet Linux.

      Anyways, I waited until he was trapped in the car with me on a longer drive and told him all the wonderful things about Linux and sold it to him on the idea that I’ll set it up as dual boot. Give Linux a couple of weeks and if you don’t like it, you can always switch to Windows. It’s been about a month now and Windows still isn’t even installed 😂

      • @[email protected]
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        010 months ago

        I don’t understand how this is possible, two parents that use Linux and he thinks Windows is the way to go? Kids in school are actually idiots.

        That said, I can’t get any of my family to use Linux. My friend tried for a while but asked me to put Windows 10 LTSC on it instead, because he wanted to click “Install” on Steam without worrying about messing with Proton settings and checking ProtonDB, which is reasonable. Some just don’t want to do the extra work, I hope some day that operating systems on our favorite kernel make it easy for plebians to use.

  • 👁️👄👁️
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    5210 months ago

    Everytime you see an ad for a game, you should ask yourself: “does this run on Linux?” Majority of the time and the answer is yes. Just saying!

    • @[email protected]
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      1610 months ago

      Fully committed, this year had been a massive improvement and I’d love to say I’m linux baby!

    • @Zapp
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      510 months ago

      What about Tarkov?

      • Thorned_Rose
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        10 months ago

        I’m not familiar with this game but if Escape from Tarkov is what you mean, it’s not listed in Proton DB. It IS listed in Wine App DB: https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=37794

        as Platinum with wine-staging 4.2 but that was from like 4 years ago and I don’t know what updates the game’s had since then.

        Only thing I can suggest is dual boot Linux and try it. Since I’ve only ever dual booted, I’m not so familiar with Linux VMs and containers so I don’t know if they’d work or if booting from a live environment USB would be sufficient to test the game with Wine.

        If you don’t dual boot, asking in one of the Linux Gaming communities might answer that question.

    • @loutr
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      510 months ago

      Case in point, Deathloop runs nicely on my gaming PC and Steam Deck.

  • VCTRN
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    10 months ago

    Why not posting this on a windows community? Or is OP expecting those sweet linux circlejerky replies?

    • @[email protected]
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      10 months ago

      OP is actually an Xbox employee doing some very intense guerilla marketing.

      Now everyone here knows that Deathloop is out and available on the Xbox app.

    • @[email protected]
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      2110 months ago

      I only see this community when I’m browsing all and it feels like a good chunk of these posts aren’t actually about Linux - they’re about how Windows is bad

    • R0cket_M00se
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      310 months ago

      “Check out this thing I had to go out of my way to find”

      I HAVE to use Windows (I asked them to let me install Arch on my own machine and the security analysts said no, can you believe it? Don’t they know how tech savvy I am?!?)

      What gave it away? Lol

      • @[email protected]OP
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        1410 months ago

        It was literally a notification; made a sound and everything. Didn’t go out of my way to see it. I’m not used to ads in my operating system so it was jarring. Surprised people accept it as normal

  • 𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘
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    4910 months ago

    Go to Manage Notifications, and turn Suggestions off. Suggestions is what Microsoft calls ads.

    • @[email protected]
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      10 months ago

      No one has mentioned it because they’re dealing with a laptop from work they have no say over

      But yes, for everyone on personal devices, it seems to be pretty nice. I’ve been using privacy.sexy for a while, but it can’t seem to do much without breaking things.

    • 𝒍𝒆𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒏
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      1610 months ago

      On a personal rig? Heck yes.
      On a work laptop? Uhhh not too sure about that… sinkholing Teams, Outlook and Devops notifications sounds like a quick way to lose track of visibility

      Microsoft know exactly what they’re doing with their spyware and adware walled garden 😔

      • @[email protected]
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        10 months ago

        If its a work laptop then their IT dept isn’t doing shit. Just change the GPO. I’ve literally never seen this on my work or personal PC.

        For as long as MS makes products for enterprise environments, there will be a way to turn this shit off.

        • @[email protected]
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          310 months ago

          I agree. I never had ads in Windows whatsoever. The only which is still nagging me is all the crapware Windows comes preinstalled with. I can’t count how many times I uninstalled that damn solitaire collection by now.

    • @[email protected]
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      1310 months ago

      Do it! My ryzen/nvidia 2060 rig is running Mint and everything works great through steam or lutris (a runner/installer)

        • @[email protected]
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          110 months ago

          I don’t think you’re going to have a problem on any distro.

          My Mint laptop has touchscreen, and it works even in dwm.

          • @[email protected]
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            10 months ago

            My mistake for not being clear, I meant having an interface that’s well suited for a tablet. Though I should probably think more about the apps than the rest of the DE.

            • @[email protected]
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              110 months ago

              I believe Gnome has great support for touchscreens including gestures. I don’t have a touchscreen to test, though.

      • circuitfarmer
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        310 months ago

        Honestly, distro really doesn’t matter much. The things you probably want to set up for gaming can be done with pretty much any distro (e.g. lower latency kernel / Liquorix / zen, driver installs (if using nvidia). Otherwise it’s just about what the distro includes by default, but rolling your own setup starting from any distro is easy and not time consuming.

      • R0cket_M00se
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        110 months ago

        Had very few issues on it, and most was just me never having attempted a Linux gaming build.

    • @[email protected]
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      410 months ago

      Do it. Gaming was the only reason preventing me from switching to the Linux side, until Itried and found out that literally every one of my games work on Linux, sometimes even better than on windows.

    • circuitfarmer
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      310 months ago

      Do it. You won’t look back.

      The reason Linux gamers have a tendency to constantly talk about Linux gaming is because it is so, so much more ready and easier than most Windows folks even realize. It constantly feels like people sticking on Windows are just missing something.

    • Jo Miran
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      210 months ago

      The only reason I have a Windows PC is because GeForce Now doesn’t have a 4K client in anything but Windows.

      • circuitfarmer
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        110 months ago

        I assume you’ve looked into this, but sharing it just in case.

        I’d also suggest just trying to run the Windows client under Proton as an alternative.

        • Jo Miran
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          110 months ago

          I’ll try the client under Wine. The issue with GeForce Now under Linux, whether it is with the client or Chrome, is that resolution is capped at 1080p/60.

      • ares35
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        110 months ago

        fixing windows shit is a source of revenue here, so i have a few to keep up-to-date… but most everything i use (windows or linux) has been cobbled-together from other people’s junk and the recycle bin.

        • Jo Miran
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          210 months ago

          As a grey beard IT guy, I approve of this practice.

  • Rev. Layle
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    2310 months ago

    I use windows 11 pro, and I don’t see any of these ads anywhere ever. Is that something the home versions only do? Did I turn off some setting proactively at setup that prevents the ads?

    • @[email protected]
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      410 months ago

      I have seen it om our company pro ;nstall before, and also not, so maybe it is group policy controlled

  • @[email protected]
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    1910 months ago

    So is that a personal laptop your using for work or a work laptop? Because if it’s the latter, they’re doing a terrible job setting policies and turning crap off with either GPO or some DSC system.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      910 months ago

      It’s a work laptop We’re a small company - I still feel like calling our IT terrible instead of Microsoft is misguided though

      • @[email protected]
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        710 months ago

        Yeah there are ways to turn that off. Additionally business should be using Enterprise edition which doesn’t have the telemetry or that unneeded bloat. You have an incompetent IT department.

        • @[email protected]
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          210 months ago

          Yeah, I’ve never had an ad like that on a work laptop, ever. A good IT dept will lock down the experience to minimize distractions for business purposes, and lock down features that aren’t appropriate for work.

        • @[email protected]OP
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          110 months ago

          I mean, I agree, but the problem isn’t just that I see this at work. I shouldn’t have to see it on a paid operating system. This is a normal user experience on Windows. Ads everywhere is annoying. I understand people can be proactive to disable this stuff, but I think it’s crumby of Microsoft to do

  • Jo Miran
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    1510 months ago

    M$: “Windows is the best OS for gaming!!!”

    Ok, fine. From now on ONLY my gaming PC will run windows, and my gaming PC is GeForce Now.

    M$: “No! Not like that!”