Autumn is coming, and it’s time for county fair fun with candy apples, fried dough and the midway. You remember the game whac-a-mole? As the moles popped up through holes on the table, it was your job to whack them before they disappeared. Now, every time another Windows 10 reminder pops up on my screen, all I want to do is grab a mallet and start whacking!
Message to Microsoft: This is my computer. Leave my desktop alone! This is not your marketing tool. What gives you the right to hijack my computer for your commercial messages? Do you want to drive me to Apple and Google?
Is This the Kind of Feedback Microsoft Wants?
What gives Microsoft the right to pepper billions of nice people all over the world with Windows 10 marketing messages? We paid for our own devices. They are ours. If you want to pay us every month, Microsoft — and if we accept your offer — then you can advertise away. Until then… STOP!
Where the heck is the OFF switch for these increasingly annoying ads? At least that would give users a chance to regain control of their own computers. Microsoft is beginning to feel like ransomware. Either switch, Microsoft, or we’ll keep bugging the hell out of you.
By continuing to dump marketing messages on users, and not giving us a way to opt out, Microsoft is only hurting itself. It’s like an abusive relationship, and Microsoft expects us to just keep taking it. Oh, really. So stop stalking us, Microsoft. It will create the opposite of what you really want.
I know you had a terrible time during the last decade or two with real growth. However, the best way to grow is to develop something users want — not to keep peppering them with shots from your marketing pebble gun over and over and over again until they give in just to get you to go away.
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Windows 10
During the last few months, I’ve had to put up with a Microsoft marketing icon in the lower right corner of my screen. When I clicked on that, it told me Windows 10 was coming and to sign up. I did — to see what would happen next.
When Windows 10 was released, I started getting annoying pop-up messages urging me to download it now. It said I wouldn’t have to install right away, but could save a copy for when I was ready. So, like a good little sheep, I did that too.
Now that my laptop has downloaded the program, Microsoft has changed its tune. It has turned into a vicious marketing machine. It annoys the hell out of me to install and upgrade. All of a sudden, this quiet marketing program has becoming a monster that I can’t shut off.
Every time I open Internet Explorer, I get a Windows 10 marketing screen that I now have to click off before I can use the browser. Every day I get a blue marketing message that pops up on the lower right corner of my screen that does the same thing. I have to click it off as well. What’s coming next?
Microsoft, I know you hope to get more users to install Windows 10, but what you are doing is creating animosity between you and the customer. As a marketing strategy, that’s a disaster.
Does Microsoft Want to Drive Users Away?
I am thinking about not using Internet Explorer any longer and going to Google’s Chrome, just to get away from the Windows 10 messages polluting my screen. I am also thinking about switching to an Apple MacBook to get away from this overly intrusive marketing machine that I just can’t turn off.
Microsoft, is that really your goal? If so, then congratulations — you are hitting the nail on the head. If not, then please realize you are making a humongous marketing mistake. You are shooting yourself in the foot.
Please, stop this madness. I’ve been a Microsoft customer for decades, and I may have been a Microsoft customer for decades going forward — but I’ve had enough. Now you have me thinking about that commitment.
Excuse me. It’s time to grab my mallet so I can whack the heck out of Microsoft! Boy, that would feel good.
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From Control Panel, go to Windows Updates and uninstall KB3035583, which is what nags you to get Windows 10.
Once it is uninstalled, perform a manual "check for updates" and you will see that it is queued to be applied ago, so right-click and hide it.