I don't get hassled by ads at all. I used to be prompted to upgrade office but that's it.

Some have a high tolerance for ads. I don't. When half the tiles in the falsely named "start menu" are ads and someone says they're not hassled by ads that means that they just like ads. Or Microsoft paid them to lie. :D

So half the tiles on the "start menu" plus this:
https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-conte...ds-800x507.png

....(and that's still a minority of the advertising forced upon you) is reasonable? Not a hassle? I say you're in a very small minority and outside of the norm.

Windows 10 after yesterdays update.

Desktop
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...ps0wpowaju.jpg

This PC
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...pstkjhpnnx.jpg

I don't see any adds, never have seen any adds. BTW desktop picture is my grandson's first haircut.

I have enumerated where the ads are with links for proof where necessary. I can gin up a page from yahoo.com with no ads on it but that doesn't mean yahoo.com isn't thoroughly infested to the point of unusability with ads. Just hit that start button unless you've carefully removed all the ads from that too, and show us that half your tiles aren't ads.

Show us your screens and show that lock screen ads disguised as backgrounds, notification ads for Edge, and a strange pop-up ad for Microsoft’s personal shopping assistant in Chrome don't exist.

Windows is an advertising platform that happens as a side effect to do a few useful things--just like the Ask toolbar or Conduit "services" or 180SearchAssistant or Gator or WhenU-DesktopBar or the cool CoolDesktopSearch! Two years ago Microsoft Windows Security Essentials was hunting and destroying these parasites. Now Windows makes all of them look like upstanding citizens of the Internet. Even the slimeballs don't require you to cede all rights to your computer if you are to use it. At least they have the decency to act illegally, without your consent. They are burglary. Windows is a brutish, strongarm, pistol armed, home invasion.

OK, I don't see ads in the start menu tiles because I don't use start menu tiles and they are turned off, I'm not seeing the lock screen ads because I don't log off on my home PC, and I can't say I've ever seen pop-up ads like that possibly because I use an ad blocker. I have been prompted to switch to Edge but I was getting similar prompts using Windows 7.

In any case, what I have been subject to is so much less than the bombardment from web sites, and game launchers, I just don't really take much notice.

Just an observation...

I checked the link in RR's post and it had several other links within it.
Including, but not limited to, links to legal actions taken against Microsoft last year. Maybe Buddahaid and HW3's lack of ads is due in part to this.

Or, it may be due to what they set when they setup their install(s).


I'm not saying it is either/or, but I am saying I've seen WInME run PERFECT. Ocasionally.

I've also seen it 'virtually' crater so hard you felt it in the real world.

I setup a friends new all-in-one with Pre-installed Win10 a few months ago.
No ads, but it did want to install when it wanted, and wouldn't let me install the software that he needed unless I rebooted so it could update.
It was a major pain.

Barracuda

I see one ad here for a game suggestion. I wouldn't have noticed save I was looking for it.
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/102...921/4KOr2o.jpg


Nothing here save a C drive that needs some space freed up.
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/102...923/uwWCel.jpg

So now I am a liar!!!! I will have you know I took those screenshots of my computer this morning, and they are 100% not fakes!!!! I have no need to post anything but the truth, as I could care less what you, or anyone else thinks. I know what my computer is doing. (BTW I have 3, all running Windows 10 just fine.) You want a shot of the start tiles, here it is. I used Screenhunter 6.0 to take the screenshots, and then uploaded them to Photobucket for posting here. I do not use Yahoo.com at all.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...psolashyvp.jpg

After today's update and restart, plus a few hours.
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/102...923/Gp4kjS.png

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/102...922/pGrh98.png

March 14, 2017—KB4013429 (OS Build 14393.953).

This damn Windows 10 update refuses to install on my PC. Scanned for viruses, none. Troubleshot Windows Update corruption, to no avail. Did Sfc /Scannow, nothing wrong, DIMS online thingy, nothing wrong either. Downloaded the update manually, failed to install even with Admin privilege...Deleted Software package folder, same thing...resetting Windows 10, the problem persists. I may have to nuke the PC with complete reinstallation losing all my files and apps...., tried deactivating the Anti Virus as the possible culprit, it wasn't it...Ran script to reset Windows Update, didn't work out...

Can anyone offer any help short of full reinstallation?

Often when Windows has a problem installing updates, Microsoft issues a correction without comment and with the same KB number. As long as your computer is running okay I think you've done your due diligence and all you can do is wait for Microsoft to fix it.

Okay, HW, here I see on the top row the xbox, groove music and movies and tv tiles are ads. On row 2 the second tile, solitaire collection and minecraft tiles are ads. On row 3 and 4 I heart radio, Candy Crush, OneNote and get office tiles are ads. what's left is what you put there and the advertisement for the Windows Store. And of course, I never said that Windows doesn't "run fine." In order for malware to do its primary work it MUST run fine.

If you read the links I helpfully supply to support my positions (I don't just allege on my own authority. I'm insisting that there be some substance in my positions) you'll note that the ads in what used to be called Windows Explorer are not displayed all the time. They are occasional. Apparently the thought process is that if they are there all the time you can easily learn to ignore them. If they appear from nowhere at unpredictable times you can remember why you hate Microsoft and that is supposed to be good in their warped vestigial brains.

Soon it will only be people who try Linux who understand what an operating system is supposed to be: what you have a right to demand that it will be. What you allowed to be perverted into an entity that preys upon you instead of serving you.

Rights are not lost when they are taken away. They are lost when we ALLOW them to be taken away: when we become the ones making excuses for those who seek to take our rights from us and become the ones who enabled their success.

My ownership rights to my computer are absolute. They will not be negotiated away. They will not be taken from me.

Now let's look at a real desktp from a real operating system, in this case it's Ubuntu 16.10 running the Unity Desktop. In Linux your GUI is not imposed on you. If you think your GUI is serving you ads or spying on you, you can switch to an entirely different one in seconds. Competition ensures that the operating system serves you and does only what you want.

http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/a...pszk2n0l2z.jpg

Here is a complete rundown on the Unity Desktop. Let's look at all the buttons, which don't care whether you have a touch screen or a mouse. Unity works better with a touch screen than Windows does.

The top button is your dash button, which is sort of like the Start button in Windows but MUCH more versatile. It allows you to search for software or data, browse all programs or data with filters and sorting options so your selection is much easier than Windows. It is NOT schizophrenic, confused whether it's a cell phone running "modern apps" (which are nothing of the sort, being severely crippled applications without appropriate menus or prompts) or a real computer running full capability computer applications.

Most importantly, every button represents software the I installed on the machine and to which I want quick access. This thing serves MY needs, not the needs of a company collecting information on me for sale without any benefit to me or which seeks to sell me things I don't need or want. If I want to go to Amazon.com I can actually do that voluntarily, and I do that quite often without someone else's help!

Soon this will look quaint to people conditioned and manipulated into thinking that being sold things against their will is a normal and even a desirable state while using your sovereign property. Soon people will make grand sounding posts about how fantastic it is that Microsoft has full rights to every file on your machine, can remove any of them at any time as it deems desirable, can copy, encrypt and send them home to Microsoft servers for evaluation, for sale, whatever purposes they have without restrictions. Soon people will proudly declare how it is a virtue that Microsoft owns the entire contents of their storage, that there is no more such a thing as confidential information, company secrets, proprietary recipes, research, communications. It's a great thing that information is free, belongs to no one (but Microsoft) and is safe from only benefiting one company or individual.

I don't understand how any corporation can justify the use of Windows 10. Even if Microsoft were not using the information for data marketing and was actually serving its customers (not for lunch either), third parties can hook into Microsoft's spyware routines to operate beyond any system of detection, because Windows itself is now spyware.

It might be a moot point, were there no alternative. But look at the screenshot above. Look at the link I have provided. You don't have to put up with a company which has thoroughly gone to the dark side and which has forgotten what an authentic operating system is.

RR, I do understand your position but I'm just not going to go to great lengths to fight what I consider a losing battle. It seams any product you can currently install tries to do the same thing. Adobe Creative Cloud etc. I dug hard to get a copy of CS6 so I could dump my CC subscription just to use Illustrator, even then I'm locked for a few more months unless I want to pay a penalty fee.

Just a thought, I don't use One Drive either which may keep the ads at bay, or not.

Hope I'm not missing the fundamental point here but I don't get all the tiles/ads....I'm using Classic Shell.