I used to work for a Fortune 500 tech company that dealt with thousands of other businesses. Someone on the executive team decided that everyone in the company should be actively pushing our products every time they had customer contact. Customer calls about a bill? Sell them something. They have a major problem and are angry about it? Sell them something. Need to use their bathroom? Sell them something.

It just irritated our customers and didn’t result in any more sales. It seems that executive got a job at Microsoft.

Have you tried a Google search?

I just reinstalled and configured Windows for a friend who’s machine was hacked, so my frustration with Microsoft is very fresh. (She lost 8 thousand dollars of her savings she’s still trying to get back.) After years of using Linux I feel like I’m being punished every time I help someone with their Windows machine.

/Rant

These things in particular drive me nuts:

• Sending everything users do and type (including passwords) back to Microsoft. It’s called spyware when other companies do it. It should be called spyware when it’s an OS called Microsoft Windows.
• Flooding 1/2 the screen with web search results when a search is done from the start menu. I’m looking for an installed program, not a potato recipe.
• Requiring a registry edit to turn that web search off and lots of other simple things that use to be configurable in settings.
• Placing ads throughout the operating system and making it difficult to turn those ads off.
• Forcing the use of the Edge browser no matter what users choose.
• Preventing the removal of unwanted programs without editing the registry.
• Forced updates at Microsoft’s convenience.
• Absurdly long restart times after updating.
• Forced OS version upgrades.
• Reverting settings that have been changed by the user to settings that directly benefit Microsoft’s sales and marketing goals.
• Forced restarts of the operating system causing data loss and the loss of millions of hours of work for millions of users.
• Removing more and more user settings with each new OS release.
• Burying commonly used menu items multiple menus deep.
• Preventing the removal of Start menu items. I will never use the Xbox Game Bar no matter how many time I’m forced to see it.

/