Windows 11 Now Officially Adware as Microsoft Embeds Ads in the Start Menu

[AVATARAT]

View attachment 345198

Unless im missing something it's not that easy. Oh and disabling the highlighted service breaks MS Store.

I have no problem with that. Maybe you need to log in at least once?

 

[Arctucas]

All this crap that M$ wants to force on you is easily defeatable...

 

[Dr. Dro]

It sounds like you're bitter. I've had no issue moving my family to Linux. They use their computers to do taxes, browse the internet, watch videos, and do their budgets. None of this needs windows. I've moved multiple older clients to linux for their home systems, again no issues. In a world where most things are web based, the client OS doesnt matter as much anymore.

I myself have used linux as my main gaming system for a year now. It's pretty great. Some multiplayer game shave issues and window stays around for the blue moon my friends play.

You are over a decade out of date on how linux works today my friend : ) maybe it's time you took a refresher on using Linux?


My solution to this is to use Manjaro for a gaming system. Then you dont have to tinker, you've got the lastest MESA and drivers and yadda yadda.

For non gaming? Mint. works every time. Even with those garbage Realtek wifi cards.

No, I'm being realistic. The only bitterness I have towards the Linux deal at all is how utterly egocentric distro developers can be, because they're heavily guided by their ideological belief in free software. This concept of absolute freedom has a higher importance than anything else, including the development of open standards. The simple fact we still have to deal with things like an fstab, often manually, is testament to that. You, as a "geek", can spend the time to learn bash syntax or whatever terminal of your choice, but most people can't be arsed, they're just not gonna do this.

The only distro developers that seem to more or less understand the need for the creation of a standardized experience are the Ubuntu devs, and it's gotten to the point people don't want to use Ubuntu anymore because it's "plain jane" and "there are better distros out there". I'm gonna be honest, I have a Fedora server here that I set up with the help of a friend a couple of years ago. It was exceedingly difficult to set up, the whole procedure to get something as simple as a SMB share and a Minecraft server running on it is so incredibly complex that it involves manually setting filesystem permissions, network access permissions, the creation of a dedicated user account specifically for that purpose, manual configuration of iptables, etc. - let's even go back to my fstab gripe, something as simple as adding storage to this server requires manual configuration of the filesystem table, because it won't just pick up on whatever SATA drive I install, much less provide an easy way to automatically mount and share it with reasonable read and write permissions. Bro ain't nobody got time for this. If this server ever fails, I'm simply not doing it again. I'll buy a prebuilt server tower from Dell and install Windows Server on it.

Using a DIY gaming desktop further exposes the problem with dependency hells, runtime versions that have issues coexisting, crude drivers (or in case of GeForce, NVIDIA's hostiity to FOSS), common lack of availability of tweaking resources (for example, overclocking your GPU on Windows is like, download afterburner and move a few sliders, but on Linux? Hahahah), the whole problem with all sorts of new techs being developed with Windows in mind, etc.

It's just a shitty experience unless you're using a Steam Deck with its tailored experience and mute expectations of what its "shitty hardware" (yes yes, I know it's a handheld, but you get the point) can do, or at a very minimum, carefully selected each of your computer's components around Linux compatibility, which 99% of the time means "buy AMD at the expense of anything else".

My tl;dr rant aside, until Linux devs step up their game and make open standards, ease of use and accessibility their core development goals (it will never ever happen), Microsoft will get away with anything, and whatever market share they bleed will go to Apple and Linux on a 99.5-0.5 split.

 

[Wasteland]

No, I'm being realistic. The only bitterness I have towards the Linux deal at all is how utterly egocentric distro developers can be, because they're heavily guided by their ideological belief in free software. This concept of absolute freedom has a higher importance than anything else, including the development of open standards. The simple fact we still have to deal with things like an fstab, often manually, is testament to that. You, as a "geek", can spend the time to learn bash syntax or whatever terminal of your choice, but most people can't be arsed, they're just not gonna do this.

The only distro developers that seem to more or less understand the need for the creation of a standardized experience are the Ubuntu devs, and it's gotten to the point people don't want to use Ubuntu anymore because it's "plain jane" and "there are better distros out there".

I'm gonna be honest, I have a Fedora server here that I set up with the help of a friend a couple of years ago. It was exceedingly difficult to set up, the whole procedure to get something as simple as a SMB share and a Minecraft server running on it is so incredibly complex that it involves manually setting filesystem permissions, network access permissions, the creation of a dedicated user account specifically for that purpose, manual configuration of iptables, etc. - let's even go back to my fstab gripe, something as simple as adding storage to this server requires manual configuration of the filesystem table, because it won't just pick up on whatever SATA drive I install, much less provide an easy way to automatically mount and share it with reasonable read and write permissions. Bro ain't nobody got time for this. If this server ever fails, I'm simply not doing it again.

Using a DIY desktop further exposes the problem with dependency hells, runtime versions that have issues coexisting, crude drivers (or in case of GeForce, NVIDIA's hostiity to FOSS), common lack of availability of tweaking resources (for example, overclocking your GPU on Windows is like, download afterburner and move a few sliders, but on Linux? Hahahah), the whole problem with all sorts of new techs being developed with Windows in mind, etc.

It's just a shitty experience unless you're using a Steam Deck, with its tailored experience and mute expectations of what its "shitty hardware" (yes yes, I know it's a handheld, but you get the point) can do.

Gnome's Disk utility (simply called "Disks," most of the time) will handle fstab for you via GUI. Including auto-decrypt+auto-mount at system startup. It's actually better than Windows Disk Management, in my experience--and before you ask, yes, it can be installed on any desktop environment, not just on Gnome. (KDE also has a Partition Manager, but in my experience Gnome Disks is simply better even on a non-Gnome machine.)

To be fair, I didn't know this for a very long time, so I developed the habit of doing everything in fstab. And if you have a non-standard storage scheme, then of course you'll need to be familiar with fstab and/or the terminal. You may very well be using something elaborate on your home server; personally I use ZFS on mine--but the ability to use a wide range of storage schemes isn't a disadvantage for Linux relative to Windows. Quite the opposite.

Relative to something like Mint, Fedora in some ways tends to hide or discourage the easiest solution. There are upsides and downsides to most any distribution. Unfortunately the sheer number of distributions only adds to the new users' confusion. Once you learn the ropes, you realize that there really are only a tiny handful of Linux flavors worth discussing--Debian-based (e.g. Ubuntu, Mint), Fedora, and Arch-based (e.g. Manjaro). Just about every distro falls into one of those categories, and the differences between distros within the same category are largely superficial.

You can also run software that isn't natively available on/for your distro via Flatpak, which is natively available, or in the niche case when that isn't good enough, with a fantastic little tool called distrobox--so the choice of your main distro isn't even really important WRT to popularity/support, anymore. And, of course, Docker remains the best solution for most any home-server software, but that's getting a little far afield of the general-purpose-usability discussion. My point: gone are the days when you were expected to build large amounts of software from source.

The attitude of the Linux community can be annoying; fully agreed there. You mention their fixation on freedom above all--I don't know that that's the first thing I'd complain about, tbh; I'd probably complain first about anti-social gatekeeping and an almost clownish bias towards tiny security advantages over usability. But all of this stuff is mostly confined to internet arguments. Refusal to package any non-free software by default is a Fedora-specific design decision; maybe that's where you developed the complaint.

 

[AusWolf]

The attitude of the Linux community can be annoying; fully agreed there. You mention their fixation on freedom above all--I don't know that that's the first thing I'd complain about, tbh; I'd probably complain first about anti-social gatekeeping and an almost clownish bias towards tiny security advantages over usability. But all of this stuff is mostly confined to internet arguments. Refusal to package any non-free software by default is a Fedora-specific design decision; maybe that's where you developed the complaint.

The problem with the Linux community is that the answer to any question is usually "oh, it's really easy, just open the Terminal, and and use these 35957 commands", while I keep scratching my head wondering why there isn't a GUI solution to my problem, it would be so simple, but no. The Linux community seems to be hell bent on keeping things highly technical just because they're used to it that way.

Then, when I voice my confusion about the instructions, the next answer is usually "you call yourself a computer guy, but you don't want to learn this 2453-line code in the Terminal? What the heck?" Honestly, no. I want to do things that take me a few clicks in Windows. I don't have half a year to memorise code for an otherwise 5-minute task.

If I could live without the horrible Terminal, and my Linux friends trying to make me use it for the simplest things, I would have made the switch a long time ago.

 

[R-T-B]

Looks like I dumped windows right in the nick of time...

The problem with the Linux community is that the answer to any question is usually "oh, it's really easy, just open the Terminal, and and use these 35957 commands", while I keep scratching my head wondering why there isn't a GUI solution to my problem, it would be so simple, but no. The Linux community seems to be hell bent on keeping things highly technical just because they're used to it that way.

It's a core linux/unix vs Windows ideology issue. The *nix way to do complex things is not to make a complex product (like a GUI). It's to chain simple (read, often CLI) tools together to do complex things. This is a big culture clash issue for most windows users, I admit.

 

[Super Firm Tofu]

Looks like I dumped windows right in the nick of time...

Well, to be fair, if you ignore the click-bait article and title, and the rest who didn't bother to read anything about it, all you need to do is uncheck 'show recommendations blah blah blah' in your Start Menu settings and Bob's your uncle.

That should have already been unchecked if one's been paying attention.

Six pages of drama and the 20+ year old "Microsoft has finally done it. I'm switching to Linux when %oldwindowsversion% is out of support"

Whinging. Whinging never changes.

 

[R-T-B]

Well, to be fair, if you ignore the click-bait article and title, and the rest who didn't bother to read anything about it, all you need to do is uncheck 'show recommendations blah blah blah' in your Start Menu settings and Bob's your uncle.

That should have already been unchecked if one's been paying attention.

View attachment 345256

Six pages of drama and the 20+ year old "Microsoft has finally done it. I'm switching to Linux when %oldwindowsversion% is out of support"

Whinging. Whinging never changes.

I mean I've actually fully switched for more than just a little bit, only dumped windows entirely this last weekend but yeah. Still, I'm sure there are clickbait elements as well. And there'll always be whiners who refuse to do anything about it, yeah.

 

[Super Firm Tofu]

I mean I've actually fully switched for more than just a little bit, but I'm sure there are clickbait elements as well.

Oh, no - I wasn't calling you out. I know you're a long time Linux user. Same here. I'm not even defending putting these recommendations in. I think it's horrid.

My point was calling Windows 'Officially Adware' is clickbait. It's one option to select in the settings to disable.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Oh, no - I wasn't calling you out. I know you're a long time Linux user. Same here. I'm not even defending putting these recommendations in. I think it's horrid.

My point was calling Windows 'Officially Adware' is clickbait. It's one option to select in the settings to disable.

Regardless, I don't think that the Windows Start Menu or anywhere in the OS is really the place for advertisements, even if they're heavily vetted. You never know who's using the computer, and where such ads may lead.

The impulse and need to monetize every last aspect of digital interaction is getting really, really tiresome.

 

[gurusmi]

Looks like I dumped windows right in the nick of time...


It's a core linux/unix vs Windows ideology issue. The *nix way to do complex things is not to make a complex product (like a GUI). It's to chain simple (read, often CLI) tools together to do complex things. This is a big culture clash issue for most windows users, I admit.

When developing software one segments a big problem into smaller pieces till there is no more ability to splitt. Then every single is solved seperately. At last everything is put together again. The same is working in Linux. As windows users are not able to develop they don't know about this base techniques and so they are shocked about Linux equally.

I still remember my first Linux version. I had to download it from Nic.funet.fi. Also the whole compiling toolchain and then the work started. Compiling the Gnu copiler and after starting to comile Linux on its own. This was about three days of work at least. It was at the days of the Amiga 2000 when I owned a pc-card with an 80286 om it or so. At that time i developed software on an Amiga in Mnemocics/Assembler. Even K&R C was a plaything for me.

 

[AusWolf]

As windows users are not able to develop they don't know about this base techniques and so they are shocked about Linux equally.

The explanation is in the word: we're users. Not developers. If the Linux community treated us as such, a lot more of us would use Linux, I'm sure. Mocking people for not being able or willing to memorise code (I've experienced this personally) is unhelpful and hostile.

Well, to be fair, if you ignore the click-bait article and title, and the rest who didn't bother to read anything about it, all you need to do is uncheck 'show recommendations blah blah blah' in your Start Menu settings and Bob's your uncle.

That should have already been unchecked if one's been paying attention.

View attachment 345256

Six pages of drama and the 20+ year old "Microsoft has finally done it. I'm switching to Linux when %oldwindowsversion% is out of support"

Whinging. Whinging never changes.

A fair point. I'd still rather just keep using Windows 10. Who knows what other hidden gems 11 comes with.

 

[gurusmi]

The explanation is in the word: we're users. Not developers. If the Linux community treated us as such, a lot more of us would use Linux, I'm sure. Mocking people for not being able or willing to memorise code (I've experienced this personally) is unhelpful and hostile.

I got in contaact with linux in a time where no programs were available for Linux. Linus Thorvalds was at his finish university and published it via their FTP-Server. I used Fidonet etc. At that time I studied computer science. There were graduated guys of computer science asking where the power switch of a mainframe terminal is located.

Nowadays most people tell that they are keen in PC and IT. But when one loks a bit deeper he can examine that this is a lie. A typical windows developer uses dotnet. But they don't know what a compiler or interpreter is and what both are good for. They don't know anything about different data structures and when or how to use it. The basement one should have to develop good and versatile programs aren't existing anymore. Especially at windows. The programs have to do everything. The user don't want to interact with a OS and they are not willing to learn it.

M$ does support exactly that with their windows. The older users did not use Unix'es like AIX, Solaris, HPUX,... They haven't had the knowledge for and they did know about that. Nowadays the users think they can do. But they aren't still able to use google to research about the needed tools. Their brain doesn't work the "unix/linux" way. They are not able to segment problems into small pieces and solve them seperately. They are overwhelmed about the problem. This isn't positive or negative. It's just factual.

Linux/unix is a whole different system with a different underlying philosophy. First one has to change his mindset before using it. The typical attitude of a Windows User is the question why one should change this mindset. Especially as both have a mouse and a gui. Windows users can move a mouse and click some boxes. It's like driving. A truckdriver can easiy drive a car. But a car driver has real issues driving a truck. Both have wheels and an engine. Nevertheless windows users don't want to realize that they are only keen in driving this small car.

 

[chrcoluk]

Then you should praise Win11 because at least MS is trying to make a more coherent UI instead of ping-ponging between two control panels. Each update migrates more things from the old to the new control panel. Win10 does not get the same treatment as it will only get security updates.

I find Win11's UI much pleasant to look at than Win10's ever was. Less said about the Win8 abomination the better.

The Win 11 UI is a abomination as far as I am concerned, can they do more than just keep copying mobile OS designs, specifically Apple. People also continue to call the Win 11 start window a start menu.

Evolution is fine, but MS are trying to reinvent the wheel.

 

[AusWolf]

Nowadays most people tell that they are keen in PC and IT. But when one loks a bit deeper he can examine that this is a lie.

No, it's not. IT doesn't necessarily mean coding. I can be keen on IT without knowing how to write a program. I'm keen on PC parts, building PCs, configuring OSes, games, etc. I don't know a lick about coding because I don't have to. PC is my hobby, not my job. Every modern OS should be fully controllable through its GUI, regardless of some oldschool Linux users knowing how to use the Terminal more effectively.

Linux/unix is a whole different system with a different underlying philosophy. First one has to change his mindset before using it. The typical attitude of a Windows User is the question why one should change this mindset. Especially as both have a mouse and a gui. Windows users can move a mouse and click some boxes. It's like driving. A truckdriver can easiy drive a car. But a car driver has real issues driving a truck. Both have wheels and an engine. Nevertheless windows users don't want to realize that they are only keen in driving this small car.

I'm keen on driving anything, but I'm not keen on learning how to build a car. That's up to the factory, not me.

Edit: Terminal, Command Prompt, PowerShell, you name it, is a thing from the 1980s, unless you're a developer. As a home user, you should never have to rely on these things. A home user should never have to remember any code.

 

[Lu(ky]

I figured this out by Microsoft Windows 11 not removing anything you install unto your computer. It barely removes the information that was installed letting the previous installed software do whatever it wants, you basically have to use a 3rd party removal tool. No wonder PC Sales are in the trash thanks to NVIDIA greed, W11 Adware, and constant PC random crashing daily and oh ya you need to sell a body part to afford all of it.

 

[hat]

This is bad but easily disabled with: Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer DisableSearchBoxSuggestions 1

Until Linux does what they should have for 25 years and use a universal packaging system like every other OS I have zero interest in their desktop "experience". Already run it on my router and tv box.

Am I the only one that thinks digging around in the registry and installing third party tools to get Windows to act right doesn't qualify as "easy"? It's as if every standard (99% sans corporate) installation of Windows is now infected with a grown up version of Bonzi Buddy that has ditched the purple gorilla, instead opting to silently watch you and phone home to MS, the almighty Advertisers, and God knows who else about everything you do.

 

[DaemonForce]

I'm keen on PC parts, building PCs, configuring OSes, games, etc. I don't know a lick about coding because I don't have to. PC is my hobby, not my job.

This should be the bar.

Every modern OS should be fully controllable through its GUI, regardless of some oldschool Linux users knowing how to use the Terminal more effectively.

And this is the part where the rubber leaves the pavement. Ever since 2003 I've been in the camp of "every part should be possible to manipulate through commandline" and it wasn't until PowerShell apps and Nanoserver that I realized "yeah that includes app shims." It took until 2016-2017 to realize what I wanted out of Windows on the server side was within sight and it took until 2019 to realize it's been within reach for a few years, at least until containers happened. Client side I just wanted the kind of freedom that exists at System level and we lost that after Vista/2008. This timeline is so dumb that Microsoft took everything that looked even semi-reasonable from Win10/2019 and created this nonstop cat-mouse atrocity with Win11/2022/HCI where we're on and off fighting this and that just to have a functional system configured exactly the way we want. Even recently it's been the case that updates are broken, sometimes to the point of trashing the existing installation or having users mess with their partitions to solve a problem that isn't theirs. Can't move the start menu where we want anymore, can't pin items to it directly or pull the jump lists, revolving door Secure Boot hell, random CPU instruction gotchas that don't need to be there, hardware scheduler that...We're not having a good time and maybe I'm just wildly cynical but that looks like the norm from here.

Every time we find a workaround for one simple thing that we want done, it's 50/50 that an update will either permanently undo that desired behavior or straight up kill the install. Memory management is so bad that I can't even get a solid hour session of projecting to a wireless display over Miracast or whatever without my base install Win10 tablet choking on something background related after closing out and randomly rebooting after a few minutes. That's not when stripped out, it's the behavior on full fat Win10. Maybe it runs out of ram. Win10 on 4GB is almost like Win7 on 2GB minus the immediate out of memory bang the moment you load desktop. I still make it work though.

I'm keen on driving anything, but I'm not keen on learning how to build a car. That's up to the factory, not me.

I'll do it (and have). Nightmare scavenging mode featuring pure unobtanium (AMC/Jeep era parts). It's not for anybody. Overbuilt a wildly insane MPFI engine and manual transmission combo with a spare in case I ever care to experiment with low friction technologies.

The older users did not use Unix'es like AIX, Solaris, HPUX,... They haven't had the knowledge for and they did know about that. Nowadays the users think they can do. But they aren't still able to use google to research about the needed tools. Their brain doesn't work the "unix/linux" way. They are not able to segment problems into small pieces and solve them seperately. They are overwhelmed about the problem. This isn't positive or negative. It's just factual.

The only thing I've noticed is HPUX gaining traction in recent years with a few snooty DevOps types and for what it is, their dailies sound completely insane but the job gets done and everyone is happy, which is more than I can say about the issues in Win10/11 that bring us here. Is it a rite of passage? Maybe so, but it's clearly not something everyone should have to deal with when they just want their system to work right. I'm not so screechy about this and that just yet. My mouse has too many buttons and my screen has too high of a framerate for me to chuck everything for a dumb terminal.

Soon...

 

[AusWolf]

This should be the bar.

And this is the part where the rubber leaves the pavement. Ever since 2003 I've been in the camp of "every part should be possible to manipulate through commandline" and it wasn't until PowerShell apps and Nanoserver that I realized "yeah that includes app shims." It took until 2016-2017 to realize what I wanted out of Windows on the server side was within sight and it took until 2019 to realize it's been within reach for a few years, at least until containers happened. Client side I just wanted the kind of freedom that exists at System level and we lost that after Vista/2008. This timeline is so dumb that Microsoft took everything that looked even semi-reasonable from Win10/2019 and created this nonstop cat-mouse atrocity with Win11/2022/HCI where we're on and off fighting this and that just to have a functional system configured exactly the way we want. Even recently it's been the case that updates are broken, sometimes to the point of trashing the existing installation or having users mess with their partitions to solve a problem that isn't theirs. Can't move the start menu where we want anymore, can't pin items to it directly or pull the jump lists, revolving door Secure Boot hell, random CPU instruction gotchas that don't need to be there, hardware scheduler that...We're not having a good time and maybe I'm just wildly cynical but that looks like the norm from here.

Every time we find a workaround for one simple thing that we want done, it's 50/50 that an update will either permanently undo that desired behavior or straight up kill the install. Memory management is so bad that I can't even get a solid hour session of projecting to a wireless display over Miracast or whatever without my base install Win10 tablet choking on something background related after closing out and randomly rebooting after a few minutes. That's not when stripped out, it's the behavior on full fat Win10. Maybe it runs out of ram. Win10 on 4GB is almost like Win7 on 2GB minus the immediate out of memory bang the moment you load desktop. I still make it work though.

I'll do it (and have). Nightmare scavenging mode featuring pure unobtanium (AMC/Jeep era parts). It's not for anybody. Overbuilt a wildly insane MPFI engine and manual transmission combo with a spare in case I ever care to experiment with low friction technologies.

I agree that Windows has been getting worse and worse ever since Windows 8. 10 was/is a slight improvement / step back in the direction users want it, but 11 is just... well, it's enough to read the opening article.

I just don't think "f* GUI and let's turn everyone into a programmer like it's the 1980s" is the right solution for the problem. Linux should support (nearly) all of its functions through GUI to make itself attractive to Windows users, and not rely on the community to tell everyone to either put up with the Terminal, or get f*ed. Of course, if a power user can work more effectively through the Terminal, that's awesome, and they should. But the Linux devs and community should realise that ordinary people aren't power users, and even some "more casual" power users (what I'd like to call myself) find memorising code a massive pain.

 

[64K]

It's obvious why MS gets away with forcing so much on their customers. The average person doesn't see any other alternative to Windows. The know nothing about Linux. Windows and MS Office are so deeply entrenched in the business world that it would be chaos to try to switch away from Windows. This is why they got away with it in 1998 when they were called before a Congressional Hearing on charges of being a monopoly by the US Dept of Justice. Even back then it was obvious that they were just too big to try to control.

 

[AusWolf]

It's obvious why MS gets away with forcing so much on their customers. The average person doesn't see any other alternative to Windows. The know nothing about Linux. Windows and MS Office are so deeply entrenched in the business world that it would be chaos to try to switch away from Windows. This is why they got away with it in 1998 when they were called before a Congressional Hearing on charges of being a monopoly by the US Dept of Justice. Even back then it was obvious that they were just too big to try to control.

All the more reason for Linux and the Linux community to make the switch more appealing by being GUI-friendly instead of being GUI-hostile, imo.

 

[gurusmi]

... I just don't think "f* GUI and let's turn everyone into a programmer like it's the 1980s" is the right solution for the problem...

In an professional environment it is the solution. The difference is that a script can be run unattended. For pushing mouses workers on a GUI workers are needed. A small bank has a minimum of 1.000 PC. If all of them needs a configuration change? For that they need already a project manager to ensure that all changes are made i.e. within a weekend. Therefor 4 or 8 workers are sitting at tthe HQ with a remote shell, starting the job and switching to the next machine. If one would need workers at all the branches to do that job locally by mouse? Have fun to explain all the costs to the IT managers.

 

[R-T-B]

In an professional environment

But we are talking end users.

 

[gurusmi]

But we are talking end users.

The only market that produces recognizable revenues for MS is the professional one. If taking a look to the private sector: Why should a developer invest a lot of additional time to develop GUI's that are not needed by the developers? They develop for free!

 

[Onasi]

The only market that produces recognizable revenues for MS is the professional one. If taking a look to the private sector: Why should a developer invest a lot of additional time to develop GUI's that are not needed by the developers? They develop for free!

That “professional”, or rather “enterprise”, market is not what you seem to think it is. It isn’t solely server and datacenters. It’s mostly volume licenses of their software for use on PCs that are still manned very much by ordinary users for whom the very idea of using CLI is anathema.
So asking why MS would pour resources into GUI development when most user-facing changes they have been announcing and pushing for almost two decades now were strictly changes to said GUI experience is a baffling take.