Misbehaving Microsoft Teams ad brings down the entire Windows 11 desktop

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/09/misbehaving-microsoft-teams-ad-brings-down-the-entire-windows-11-desktop

by hazzamanic • 5 years ago

281 192 5 years ago

arstechnica.com

tonetheman• 5 years ago

An ad can take down your computer... sigh. Microsoft you have learned nothing... :(

matheusmoreira• 5 years ago

It just keeps getting worse and worse.

bloopernova• 5 years ago

And this is why I ditched Windows when the preview edition installed v11, and moved to Fedora.

jrockway• 5 years ago

Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28404332

grishka• 5 years ago

It would really be a shame if something were to happen to the files that contain the code that implements these "features".

hfktktnfkgk• 5 years ago

One bug I've been hitting for a couple of years on Windows 10:

If the computer starts with a working Internet connection, but then you lose Internet, Start Menu search just stops working during net downtime. Meaning I type some app name like "calc" in the Start Menu search box and nothing appears! Which is absolutely ridiculous, I can't search for locally installed apps, or Windows settings. Even if I disabled Cortana and Internet search in the Statt Menu (or maybe because of it?)

And I failed to Google the problem since all the keywords combinations I tried inevitably lead to some article on how to disable Internet search in the Start Menu, so I have no idea if I'm the only one with this bug.

sitzkrieg• 5 years ago

i have hit this and it drives me nuts. not in a while though, maybe i havent tried when net down lately

DixieDev• 5 years ago

Can't be sure, and forgive me if this is already what you mean by disabling "Internet Search", but I suspect you are experiencing this because of Bing's involvement in the start menu search. To fix it, you have to regedit some stuff: https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/f09184/how_to_bl...

Spivak• 5 years ago

I had to use the registry key as well because MS broke the GPO (I would say on purpose but anyone who is in a position to mess with GPOs knows how to edit registry keys with it as well) but it really does get rid of it for good.

BizarroLand2• 5 years ago

For me, in Windows 10, I can type "calc" into the search menu and it will recommend and open the calendar app instead of the calculator app 2 out of 5 times.

I will search for an app that I have installed and instead of opening the app it will open a bing search for the app that I have installed.

It's so infuriating that if there were a M$ rep within arm reach I might be tempted to do violence towards them.

eric__cartman• 5 years ago

The search function in Windows 10 is pathetic. It almost seems like an April fool's joke that was left in place for too long. What is double stupid is that MS already had a working search built into the shell in Windows 7. It's like they don't understand that no one ever woke up one day and thought to themselves, "I hope I could search the web using the start menu in Windows".

easton• 5 years ago

From a command prompt (you shouldn't need admin rights), run "REG ADD HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer /v DisableSearchBoxSuggestions /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f", which disables the web search suggestions in the registry. After restarting Windows Explorer (or logging off and back on), you should have search work how you'd expect.

hulitu5• 5 years ago

Old school people use Win + R -> calc -> enter

flutterwascrap6• 5 years ago

Haven't happened to me on my desktop. Maybe try updating? File a bug report?

The start menu web search is actually really good for quickly searching for things.

hulitu5• 5 years ago

Haven't happened to me on my desktop. Maybe try updating? File a bug report?

You funny. Have you ever encounted a Win 10 bug ? Did you find any fix ? For example: mouse clicks extra when the mouse button is pressed (drag) or double clicks when you single click. Or Title bar and menubar/ribbon dissapears in multimonitor environment.

INTPenis2• 5 years ago

I will begrudgingly use windows 11 at some point because of the games you can play on it. But for anything else I'm so glad Linux and its ecosystem exists, and is only getting more stable lately.

Windows gives me heartburn.

heyitsguay• 5 years ago

If you're playing games through Steam and haven't checked out Proton in a while, give it another try! The only game I haven't been able to get work on Ubuntu 16/18/20 is Fallout 3.

dankwizard• 5 years ago

Don't feel bad - Fallout 3 (atleast from Steam) no longer works on Windows 10 either! Installed it the other day, googled after it failed to launch, and saw there's a few community efforts and hacks you can try to get it up and running. I gave up.

azalemeth2• 5 years ago

I completed Fallout 3 a few months ago on Ubuntu 20 under Proton (and Fallout: New Vegas). Try using Lutris's implementation of wine ± proton -- my GOG copy "just worked", much to my surprise. Including the mods, and mod managers!

If you continue to have trouble, drop me an email and I'll give you my configuration.

I very much second your sentiment about proton being "good enough". It's amazing! I have a less than stellar GPU -- a Radeon 570 -- and haven't found a single game that I can't play on 'ultra' settings at 1080p, including the in-development BG3.

After Apple's CSAM awfulness, my next laptop will be linux, ideally with a Zen processor, quite possibly running Manjaro and either KDE or i3.

flutterwascrap6• 5 years ago

I would like to but the performance is a dealbreaker. If I'm on windows, I can expect to run latest titles at 60 fps on my 4 year old rig. That isn't possible on wine/proton.

INTPenis2• 5 years ago

Yes I am aware. Even before Proton I was one of those geeks with one Radeon for a Windows VM and one cheap GPU for the host system.

But it's just too much hassle. I'd rather just boot up my big Windows gaming rig. I view it as a modular Xbox that I build myself.

So no matter how far we come in Linux, most people will still have a "Wintendo" PC console for gaming.

2OEH8eoCRo0• 5 years ago

What games specifically? Because I've been doing 100% of my gaming on Linux lately and it works quite nice.

zamadatix• 5 years ago

Something like half of the top 10 games on Steam can't even start due to anti cheat and Steam is what's pushing gaming on Linux. To be fair to them if they weren't that number would be a lot worse, many of their own games are in that list. Of the ones that can they generally work alright but a few have intermittent crashes or things you have to workaround.

If you play older/smaller single player games though it generally does the job pretty darn well.

gryn• 5 years ago

Almost any online game will not work because of anticheat software designed specifically for windows.

I personally just decided to give up on the online games instead.

whalesalad• 5 years ago

This is the achilles heel of Microsoft. They will cannibalize a successful part of their business in order to subsidize/bootstrap/launch or even straight-up force the adoption of new service.

Every Windows release gets progressively worse when it comes to Microsoft's integrated services and how obtrusive they are.

The cherry on top is the fact that Windows 10 Pro is $199 and yet you'll still feel like you are flying Sprit airlines when you boot it up.

meibo• 5 years ago

It's such a shame too. Windows 10 is a great modern OS that everyone expected to last and be built upon, but they just had to go and push out a new "modernized" version and fill it up with ads.

I wonder what you pay to be in the Windows 10 Pro start menu and if it's really worth selling out their professional userbase.

PostThisTooFast• 5 years ago

How is it a "great modern OS?" Internally?

Because its UI and user experience are a shitshow. Settings are scattered everywhere. Windows have no toolbars, title bars, or borders to distinguish them from the one they're overlapping. Menu bars are missing. There are access-prohibited shadows of user directories all over the place in Explorer. The color-scheme editor is simply gone. It's still full of peek-a-boo and Easter-egg UI, with controls disguised as text or simply invisible unless you accidentally roll over them.

And my favorite: Microsoft has disabled remote desktop access except in its "pro" version. Gee, Microsoft: Your contention is that a PROFESSIONAL is the most likely customer to need someone else to log in and help him remotely? Retarded.

When my parents have an issue that I could log in and solve, guess what? I can't. And no, Microsoft, I'm not "upgrading" them to a "pro" version of your broken shit. I'm going to buy them a Mac, and that's the end of Windows in any of my family's homes. And this is coming from a former Windows enthusiast / professional developer / Mac scorner.

You don't realize how unusable Windows has become until you try to set someone up on it. Its E-mail program is absymal, defective in design and function. Outlook isn't included anymore. If you do make the mistake of installing another glorified spam conduit, Office 365, you'll be treated to defects that literally render it unusable to some people: I increased the system-wide font size for my parents, but Outlook didn't honor it. E-mail subjects in the In box remained microscopic and illegible.

And of course there's the endless goddamned harangue to log in with your Microsoft account. A huge portion of the population is laden with an ever-growing pile of accounts and passwords. An account to log into your computer. Another for E-mail. Another for Apple products. Another for your cable provider. ENOUGH. They have no idea which one I'm asking for when I need to get their password to help them with something.

It's easy for the Hacker News demographic to forget that PEOPLE DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS MESS. And so they are writing down their IDs and passwords on Post-Its and putting them on their computers. They are using the same password on every site that demands that they use an E-mail address as a user ID, because they think that this is required.

Then the users feel dumb and blame themselves for problems, which pisses me off even more. They're being TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF BY MICROSOFT and others, rendering their computers essentially unusable and their security at risk. It's disgraceful.

thaumasiotes• 5 years ago

Windows 10 is a great modern OS that everyone expected to last and be built upon

Possibly related to Microsoft explicitly saying "there will be no further versions of Windows after Windows 10".

lostlogin2• 5 years ago

Windows 10 is a great modern OS

I’m an infrequent user of it but have a starkly different opinion. It feels like a layer on top archeology and the number of places you have to go to find settings and controls is unhelpful.

jussij• 5 years ago

Is Windows 10 really that good?

It's been some time now, but I still remember the first time I upgraded away from Windows 7 and feeling disappointed.

Since then my hardware is massively more powerful, but I'm still to be convinced my current Windows 10 setup is better than that older Windows 7 setup.

nonbirithm• 5 years ago

Perhaps there's a version of Moore's Law concerning the amount of innovation left at the OS level, and we're only starting to run out of it just now.

What legitimately useful features can we expect out of the release of iOS five major versions down the line? Will there be any new features that change the status quo, and that we'd be practically unable to live without? The significant features like the app store and multitasking have already been done long ago. As for macOS, it seems that the new security controls and notifications are significantly impacting some people's user experience, but they're still "improvements" from Apple's standpoint.

And yet Apple and Microsoft are still somehow compelled to keep releasing new versions of their operating systems on a fairly regular basis. It's hard to imagine there will be a "final" or even long-term-support version of iOS. But those companies aren't going to market their new OS versions as changing nothing, so something has to change.

I'm honestly very curious to see what will happen ten years from now when the vendors will struggle to meet their own arbitrary standards for innovation with each new OS version when, by nature, there are not many more significant breakthroughs left to be had.

userbinator2• 5 years ago

I really wish people would stop using the word "modern" in marketing rhetoric as if it was a good thing, because more often than not they're using it and other buzzwords because they don't have any better compelling reasons to convince you to use their product.

No, I do not care that the newer version is more "modern", "stylish", "sleek", "clean", or any other number of useless buzzwordy adjectives. Tell me concretely what's actually better about it and how it will improve my (my, not your!) "experience". An OS should not be a fashion statement nor an advertising platform. It's a tool people use to get real work done.

cameronh90• 5 years ago

Hasn't this behaviour been the case since at least Windows 98? I'd say Windows has improved a lot since then! Remember Active Desktop, the Channel Bar and MSNBC?

I may have misgivings about certain things in modern desktops but Windows 10, OneDrive, Teams, Edge absolutely deliver a better experience for an average user compared to XP, Microsoft Briefcase, Windows Messenger and IE6 - and XP was one of the good ones!

phkahler2• 5 years ago

> but Windows 10, OneDrive, Teams, Edge...

My company issued laptop came with all that. After installing some important software (embedded compiler and IDE, wsl, etc) my one drive complained it was full, which needs to be addressed or it will keep complaining. The recommended solution is to upgrade to a paid onedrive with more then 5GB. I didnt know I was using onedrive, so I turned it off. All my important files created over that last few months disappeared. I could buy more onedrive space to restore them or they did show them all in some folder so dragged them back to various places. This was 100 percent wasted time since the machine came with something on the order of 100 times the 5GB onedrive freebie limit.

Now months after having turned off onedrive, it's full again. Must have got turned on again, but not by me.

Teams is another one I dont even want to get started on. And edge is just chrome with MS corruption and starting at Bing.

pixel_fcker• 5 years ago

Teams is a strong contender for most aggravating software ever written.

vladvasiliu3• 5 years ago

I may have misgivings about certain things in modern desktops but Windows 10, OneDrive, Teams, Edge absolutely deliver a better experience for an average user compared to XP, Microsoft Briefcase, Windows Messenger and IE6 - and XP was one of the good ones!

I'm not familiar with Briefcase (never knew what it did) and I'll give you Edge vs IE6.

But Teams vs Windows Messenger? No way. I'm running Teams on a computer orders of magnitute more powerful than what I had at the time of XP, and it STILL lags. I'm not a particularly fast typer, but it STILL can't keep up with me. This is, hands down, the worst piece of software I have to use today.

And I bet if it wasn't pushed "free" by MS to companies already using their stuff, no one would know about it.

thrower123• 5 years ago

The LTSC enterprise/MSDN-only versions are almost perfect. All the crap is ripped out, it's fantastic. It's what Windows should be.

0x0nyandesu2• 5 years ago

It's sort of amazing to me that most people through word of mouth don't already know this. Your work or university has probably already paid for a license dozens of times over.

denimnerd42• 5 years ago

don't even get a hevc license with windows 10 pro..

nixpulvis3• 5 years ago

But who else will save us from the tyrannical Apple cultists!?

recursive2• 5 years ago

Apple has done this for a long time too. I used to be an ipod believer, but then I tried to put music onto one using anything other than itunes. Obviously, that was a long time.

But woe be unto the apple user who wants to interoperate with a non-apple thing.

garbagecoder• 5 years ago

Say what you will about the walled garden, at least there is one working way to do the thing.

geodel• 5 years ago

I used to doubt power of ads. No longer.

errantspark3• 5 years ago

It's so mind boggling to me that we're okay with this level of uncertainty about the systems we rely on every day. I run LTSC with updates disabled because the idea that something that's working one day would stop working the next drives me up the wall. I have a linux phone (which is awful) because at least when that breaks it's my fault and I can always just put it back into a known working state.

I hate how my relationship with Microsoft/Google etc is essentially one where they're constantly pushing the boundaries of what I'm willing to put up with. It's fucking abusive.

mistrial9• 5 years ago

we're okay with this level of uncertainty

no, you are not the customer.. executive management, legal and finance are the target customer

vladvasiliu3• 5 years ago

I sometimes like to joke that seeing a company push for Windows / Teams, and, more generally, software that fights against you instead of helping you do your job must be some kind of signaling. "Look how well-off we are, we can afford to pay our employees full-time while they only work half the time".

marcodiego11• 5 years ago

... we're okay with this level of uncertainty about the systems we rely on every day.

I'm not included in this "we". And I definitely pay a price for that by sacrificing some convenience. I'm sure the price would be lower if more people were willing to make the same sacrifices.

I can understand most end users being okay with that. Most are not educated to know the problems or alternatives. But developers should consider how contributions in code or money could improve competition and encourage development of better software for everyone.

Jorengarenar• 5 years ago

I, on the other hand, would need to sacrifice a lot of convenience to be included in this "we"

washadjeffmad• 5 years ago

Not being glib, but have you ever tried just getting rid of your laptop, smartphone, internet, TV, etc?

They certainly add the occasional convenience, but it's actually really easy to go a week or three at a time without any of it.

That's always an option, and it's a fairly good one if it's making you feel how you describe.

pixl97• 5 years ago

Getting rid of my laptop and internet for a few weeks and I expect to make a living how?

nixpulvis3• 5 years ago

Um, oh how I've dreamt of this reality... despite all the problems they have caused, computers are just too damn useful to give up on. We just need to learn to control the larger system that produces them better.

infogulch• 5 years ago

So your advice is to throw up your hands, back off from technology entirely, cede all territory to bigcos, and just sit back and watch them run rampant right over everyone else too. Stepping away is not stepping "out", there is no "out" anymore.

I'm gonna come camp out on your front porch, it's fine ok? Not to be glib but if this bothers you have you considered just moving out of your house? Maybe house living is just not for you man, just walk away.

errantspark3• 5 years ago

I have spent many a summer at a cabin with no internet, potable water or plumbing. I love it, it's a beautiful time. It's one of my favorite places to be in the whole wide world.

That being said I also love technology. It's fucking magic and I'm a mage. I have immense power over one of the most effective forces in the world and I spend a depressing amount of it to circumvent annoyances forced upon me by people trying to part me from my money. It's so frustrating because I love what technology is and what it can enable for people, and I hate how trash the baseline is, and I especially hate most people don't even know how good things could be if we y'know had open standards and shit. I know that there isn't an easy fix, but my frustration is none the less valid. So much of humanity's effort in tech is spent on bullshit that doesn't add value at best, and is actively detrimental to all but a few humans on average.

branon• 5 years ago

Which linux phone?

makeitdouble2• 5 years ago

Isn't it true for a lot of things we rely on every day ?

Remembering the days of commuting by train, wether the train will come on time or not was a lottery. Traveling by car, accidents, jams, not being able to park etc. are mundane.

Elevator/escalators being in maintenance was also a common sight.

Things being broken feels part of life, and we learn to plan ahead, have alternatives or deal with it when there is nothing to help.

I think computers and remote services entering our everyday lives is part of that.

asdff2• 5 years ago

A computer is a tool. You buy it to perform what it is advertised to do, just like a socket wrench set. But unlike a socket wrench set, the manufacturer could break into your home in the night and replace your rachet and make it incompatible with your old sockets that still work.

nightski• 5 years ago

This is in a pre-release build. I'm not happy to hear about it, but in reality Windows 10 has been incredibly reliable. Can't remember the last time I saw a crash to be honest, and I use it for 8-10 hours a day most of the time.

shkkmo• 5 years ago

You mean the same windows 10 that I never bother to boot into because every time I do various services decide to do so many indexing and updating tasks that it pegs the hard drive at 100% for hours?

I should be able to launch windows every couple of months without having to wait so long to do anything that I forget why I even booted into windows in the first place.

raxxorrax• 5 years ago

but in reality Windows 10 has been incredibly reliable

True, but it depends on which component. For a year it couldn't sort and move symbols on the desktop without bugs.

On some systems there is a "Microsoft Compatibility Telemetry" process that will take all your CPU. Don't know, MS could farm bitcoins for all we know.

There are a lot of small issues, but yes, overall it got more dependent, although I think Win7 was stable as well.

Still, overall it doesn't really improve, it mostly gets worse. The infestation with ads shouldn't be allowed in any operating system. These are ideas from guys Steve Jobs warned us about.

swiley3• 5 years ago

I’m not ok with it. Nothing in my house runs Windows and even my phone runs Linux with a fairly normal X11 DE at this point.

At work all the coorperate crapware makes the machine so unstable anyway Microsoft’s malware would just be one more thing. It’s a broken window (heh) situation.

throwawayboise• 5 years ago

I installed OpenBSD about 10 years ago and have used nothing else on my personal computers since then. It does occasionally have breaking changes in its updates, but they never happen without you taking action to initiate them.

The idea that we're OK with random popups, feature promotions, nags to use this or that or enable some setting, and outright advertising on our computers is just mind-boggling.

JohnFen4• 5 years ago

It's so mind boggling to me that we're okay with this level of uncertainty about the systems we rely on every day.

I'm not OK with it. It's one of the many reasons why I stopped using Windows on my own machines a decade or so ago. Sadly, though, I still have to use it at work, and every workday, I'm reminded why I stopped using Windows.

chrisan• 5 years ago

Looks like the tradition of skipping a terrible windows release will continue

Me.. Vista.. 8.. 11

loicd• 5 years ago

There used to be the "Windows tax" that the rest of Microsoft had to pay[1], now I guess that there is the "Rest-of-Microsoft tax" that Windows has to pay.

[1] https://www.ft.com/content/9e09d082-b5d3-11e3-a1bd-00144feab...

jfptech• 5 years ago

That’s funny considering Microsoft is so tax averse when it comes to its own finances.

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-irs-decided-to-get-to...

zz865• 5 years ago

Windows 11 hasn't been released yet right?

joenathanone• 5 years ago

Will be released to GA next month.

achr2• 5 years ago

It's not so much the fact that an issue occurred, but rather the fact that this type of issue can occur at all. They have coupled nagware into the core of the OS.

reilly30002• 5 years ago

For what it’s worth, the web has figured out ad serving. With stuff like SafeFrame there is decent sandboxing and exception handling. I’ve really not seen any ad serving outside of web and app sdks that doesn’t fail miserably on a technical level.

AlotOfReading• 5 years ago

Has the web figured out ad serving? I was under the impression that malvertising was still very much an issue and even best-in-class security doesn't outright stop things like cryptominers, but instead simply prevents them from consuming too many resources. It's better than wherever MS used here, but I'm definitely not comfortable using the web without an adblocker.

reilly30002• 5 years ago

It’s not a solved issue to be certain, but sites that use a service like CleanCreative rarely have issues, as do any publishers that whitelist ads and advertisers.

clavicat• 5 years ago

Windows is probably the most important piece of software in the entire world, yet Microsoft does not treat it like the most important piece of software in the entire world. They have no sense of responsibility about foisting this garbage onto billions of users.

I've been a lifelong Windows user, but I've come to feel that Windows needs to be completely replaced. We simply cannot trust Microsoft with mission-critical software any longer.

dstaley• 5 years ago

You do realize this issue was on Windows 11, an unreleased operating system correct? I'm not saying Windows 10 hasn't had its share of critical issues, but I can't remember the last time Microsoft released widely a show-stopping bug to the LTS branch of Windows (that is, the branch you'd be using for "mission-critical" applications).

XorNot• 5 years ago

The existence of ads as a "core" part of the Windows experience speaks otherwise.

Why are there ads in paid software? Why is Microsoft content having a separation of "serious" Windows and consumer Windows, delineated by ads and spyware?

ptero• 5 years ago

It is not any unreleased OS though. It is a major release of the most widely used desktop OS in the world, that presumably got through many layers of testing and was released to a small set of outside users before the final rollout less than 1 month away. One would expect a pretty solid state by then.

brian_herman• 5 years ago

Yeah, but I'm thinking this is a repeat of Windows Vista and I'll be able to stay on 10 for a while before they create Windows 12 which will be a much better release.

ComputerGuru• 5 years ago

You do realize that this isn’t about this one ad bringing down Windows 11 but rather the very architecture that allowed for an ad to integrate itself into the system to such an extent? That is not something you can fix before RTM release, only patch around.

exporectomy3• 5 years ago

It's not just defects, it's ridiculous design choices. Why does almost every single Windows user on the planet have their attention occasionally taken by something utterly pointless to them like "3D Objects" or "Onedrive" when they look for a file, or choosing between "Edit with Photos", "Edit with Paint 3D", and "Edit"? And choose between "Settings" and "Control Panel" which seem like different skins of the same thing, except one has slightly more icons in it than the other, so does that mean it's more functional? Who knows? User has to decide. And why is it that with multiple monitors, if one goes to sleep, the windows all move around, so for anything you keep open, you're regularly manually re-positioning the window every day?

kroltan2• 5 years ago

I think it was back in 2018, there was a bugged mandatory Windows Update package that was corrupted for weeks.

The system would ask you to reboot the computer, at which point it would try to install the update. That failed with a bluescreen, requiring an automatic restore. This process took around 30 minutes on an SSD.

So far seems innocuous, but the thing is, as this was a mandatory update, after one or two days it would display an un-dismissable popup over the entire screen demanding a restart, which would repeat the process above.

This caused data loss in applications if the user didn't have the opportunity to save whatever data was in memory. Remember, the popup is undismissable, there were no ahead of time warnings, and the timing varied (so you couldn't even rely on "the computer will fuck up at 16:03" or whatever).

walrus012• 5 years ago

Windows is probably the most important piece of software in the entire world

It's absolutely not. The amount of things that use the Linux kernel for critical network and infrastructure projects, that are mostly hidden to the public... Or that are built on a foundation of something with a clear Linux heritage.

Windows is probably the most visible important piece of software with a GUI.

mulmen2• 5 years ago

I don’t see how the GUI makes Windows less important. Windows is everywhere.

voidfunc• 5 years ago

This is such an incredibly pedantic HN answer.

Let's just say they're both insanely important to our continued functioning digital existence. Without working Linux or Windows we are quite fucked.

marcodiego11• 5 years ago

Microsoft has no threat on the desktop. Apple has a respectable slice but still small compared to Microsoft. With regard to linux... well, if ME, Vista and 8 couldn't bring it into a good position, I don't know what would.

flutterwascrap6• 5 years ago

Sometimes I feel like microsoft bribes people in free desktop project.

fabianhjr• 5 years ago

We simply cannot trust Microsoft with mission-critical software any longer.

We generally don't, most servers and mission critical infrastructure runs Linux or a BSD. What scares me is that many medical devices do run on Windows and that is a future Therac-25 like incident waiting to happen ( https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Therac-25 )

ajdude• 5 years ago

Some years ago I went to the dentist and had to get x-rays done on my teeth. After a fair bit of time going through all of the different angles, the technician apologized to me and said that we have to do it all again.

The computer tied to the x-ray machine did a forced restart for Windows update, this is back in the days of Windows 7, and I had to get my teeth x-rayed all over again after we sat and waited for 20 minutes.

hn_throwaway_99• 5 years ago

To clarify, though, this is just an issue for people who are deliberately getting preview builds (aka beta testers), correct? The article feels pretty click-baity with that critical detail not part of the title.

haswell• 5 years ago

Correct, this is a beta build.

With that said, I get that things go bad in betas - this is the point of a beta release - but this still feels egregiously bad. It also highlights the direction Windows is going, which is cause for criticism even if this worked perfectly.

nomel• 5 years ago

This is like driving some prototype car and having the brakes go out when your tail light burns out. It's a serious concern because it's not something that should be able to happen, with a sane design. Sure, it's click-baity, but it's also insanity.

0x0nyandesu2• 5 years ago

I've been on insider edition beta versions of windows for years and while I don't mind occasional hiccups stuff like this made me get rid of it. It was fine for a while but ever since the 20202H update it's been one major issue after another.

MrStonedOne• 5 years ago

internet downloaded ads shouldn't be able to break your computers.

like, even in a buggy system, it shouldn't happened, and there is clearly not enough isolation, something that isn't gonna get fixed in a release candidate and be prepared for this to somehow turn into a ring0 exploit later down the line.

JohnFen4• 5 years ago

Even more than that, your OS should not be showing you ads at all, let alone downloading them. The problem here isn't that the facility went wrong, it's that the facility exists.

thomastjeffery5• 5 years ago

Windows 11 desktop

It's right there.

Sure, it relies on the surrounding context that Windows 11 is in beta, but that's pretty common knowledge.

Saris• 5 years ago

It is yes, but it shows deeper issues where the way they're designing the OS allows things that don't matter at all to break core systems.

theknocker• 5 years ago

I'm also a big fan of the weather widget they tried to force on everyone's start bar. I'm also a big fan of how "one drive" is now critical functionality, and windows needs to persistently notify me if I'm not logged into it. I'm also a big fan of how it's 2021, and their bloated OS still takes like ten minutes to truly boot up all the way.

sleepytimetea• 5 years ago

HERE BE DRAGONS.

From the article comes this nugget of knowledge.

quote This problem combines two of latter-day Windows' most annoying tendencies. First, the operating system relentlessly promotes and prioritizes Microsoft's first-party apps and services. Second, the operating system talks to Microsoft's servers in the background to report diagnostic data, fetch advertisements, and even download Windows Store apps without asking. As Aleksandersen correctly points out, these non-essential background processes shouldn't be capable of breaking core functionality. unquote

hulitu5• 5 years ago

Second, the operating system talks to Microsoft's servers in the background to report diagnostic data, fetch advertisements, and even download Windows Store apps without asking.

Microsoft has learned nothing from Solar Winds. Time for some popcorn. It's funny how the concept of security has slipped from "no open ports and no default services" to "backdoors (automatic download and install) and telemetry (data exfiltration without permission -also backdoor).

marcodiego11• 5 years ago

Correct title: "ad brings down the entire Windows 11 desktop". There's no "well behaving ad".

flutterwascrap6• 5 years ago

Just remove all ads. That should fix the bug.

pcdoodle• 5 years ago

This also creates trust issues in a lot of applications like Point of Sale, Machine Control Devices, Security and Automation Solutions, Motion Control Solutions, Etc.

I miss Balmer a little bit. Developers hate this shit. Have trust that if you support developers, they will advocate your OS.

marcodiego11• 5 years ago

Actually I think windows became much better for developers after ballmer. VSCode, github, wsl, wsl2... It seems to me that ballmer was much more about windows-only everywhere than developers.

newbamboo• 5 years ago

Sounds like a feature, not a bug.

jhanschoo• 5 years ago

Looks like Windows is the Smart TV of home computers since Win10

tempfs• 5 years ago

Teams, that application that is notoriously slow, unstable and crashy AF...will soon be 100% baked in and inseparable from the rest of the OS.

[cue hyper-emotional MSFT spokesperson reaction GIF]

windex• 5 years ago

What ever happened to simple, light weight, free standing OSes? Why does everything have to be networked, with "like share subscribe" buttons, bundled with crap and always online?

errantspark3• 5 years ago

It's profitable to do so. If I had to point a finger it is because individuals (and companies, made up of individuals) do not take responsibility for their part in supporting institutions that corrode the commons for personal gain.

If you work for a place that is largely just about shuffling money to yourself by exploiting info asymmetry sabotage it or quit. You most likely have a skillset that can earn you a living wage somewhere that's a net positive for society.

haolez• 5 years ago

Maybe Haiku with a good web browser will save us :)

Causality1• 5 years ago

Microsoft stopped using real hardware for Windows Update testing and instead now rely on virtual machines. Ever since then Windows Update has been the most incompetent, half-assed major software project in the world, bar none. Java has a better track record.

megablast• 5 years ago

And this wonderful webpage starts playing a video with. I thing to do with the story. What a joke.

Misbehaving Microsoft Teams ad brings down the entire Windows 11 desktop

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