Comment by orbital-decay
1 day ago
>This situation has.. no precedent as far as I can tell..
Printer, mouse, tablet and display tablet makers use this to insert their crapware since at least Windows Vista or Windows 7, I think. The last one I remember is plugging a Razer mouse just to watch it instantly pulling 1.5GB of bloated junk with "telemetry" exfiltrating the data from my gaming PC in realtime. At least it doesn't leave my mouse in a non-working state when I disconnect the internet, like it used to. Thanks, Razer!
Microsoft is to blame here, really. They have a mechanism to block any vendor (supposedly to avoid reputational risks to their brand due to buggy drivers, at least that was their excuse back in the day), but aren't even using it to block these contraptions. Entire businesses are built on this, e.g. Razer is probably more of a marketing/data company now rather than a hardware shop.
Back in my Window days. I would start the driver installation and let it sit. Open the temp folder and copy content the install extracted to a new directory. Cancel the installation. Open Device Manager and install the drivers from there so non of the excessive bloat was installed.
This worked greater with being an IT consultant. The client's machine to run smoother and drivers installed fast since they would buy multiples of the same equipment at once.
Now I only use Linux on personal equipment. You have to pay me to use Microsoft products. Microsoft has become shit-ware.
To be fair Microsoft was always shitware. I don’t remember a time when using a Windows machine just worked, didn’t take up gigabytes of space, didn’t crash, and didn’t get messed up by simply using it requiring a yearly or semi-yearly reinstall.
Windows in the 95-XP era wasn't exactly high-quality software, but it was genuine technical innovation, doing what you otherwise couldn't do.
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I remember when Windows didn't take gigabytes of space because there wasn't gigabytes of space, and it was still shitware.
Windows 3.1? It was only 6 3.5” disks.
To be fair, I had stretches of 2K, XP, 7 and 10 working acceptably.
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Microsoft BASIC was a pretty decent interpreter, I wouldn't call it "shitware", so there you go?
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That happened all the time. My Windows machines, from XP all the way up through early Windows 10, just worked. They didn't crash. And they certainly didn't need to get reinstalled for no reason. Your experience, while unfortunate, is not remotely typical.
"The Halloween documents comprise a series of confidential Microsoft memoranda on potential strategies relating to free software, open-source software, and to Linux in particular, and a series of media responses to these memoranda. "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_documents
https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-accused-being-conne...
7zip will do the trick for a lot of self extractors.
When .INF was all you needed (and some .cat / sys)! More recently, I found out that approach can sometimes lead to missing features when using the hardware. Even though the driver is installed correctly. I was probably missing something but didn't dig deeper into it.
These days, even a window gets updates.
https://www.netjeff.com/humor/item.cgi?file=lastwin.95
> but aren't even using it to block these contraptions
Even worse, this one is installed via Windows update. I have an LG monitor and noticed the stupid LG app all of the sudden, uninstalled it, and saw it pop up again as an update in Windows update.
Microsoft is actively enabling this behavior.
I don't understand how this is legal. Isn't this malware? Isn't it illegal to install malware on someone's computer without their permission? Or is this very illegal, but nobody cares about that anymore?
I guess it’s becoming harder for MS to define malware in a way that would catch this behavior but does not flag their own products as well.
Tou probably agreed to this when you broke the seal on the box that contained the monitor and a copy of the agreement you just agreed to.
If you think that’s bad, don’t ask what you agreed to by reading this comment.
I miss the days when contracts required two-party consent, or at least “meeting of the minds” / negotiations.
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you'd need to legally prove it's malware and they would definitely claim it's useful software tools that come with the hardware or something
"Isn't it illegal to install malware on someone's computer without their permission?"
Yeah but you almost certainly granted permission to allow updates from our "Partners" when you installed windows. How did you miss clause III of romanette 2 in the 6th paragraph right in front of your face on page 26 of the ToS?
It is legal by default. The question is: why isn't it illegal?
Some quick searching suggests this scenario hasn't been tested in the courts. Like most things, you have to take it to the federal courts and establish case law, OR pass a law (good luck).
It shouldn't be allowed. Microsoft shouldn't allow this, but they do, because they like having revenue from business partners.
Microsoft could easily make a rulebook for drivers, and say any company which violates the rulebook can only send open source drivers, or even ban them from driver distribution entirely which would quickly kill a consumer hardware brand.
Microsoft does not care about the quality of Windows. Half the malware comes from them. Windows is just a platform they can sell online services and AI products through.
My Logitech mouse does this but it prompts to install their crapware and adds that to the startup programs, it's not automatically installed.
The last one I remember is plugging a Razer mouse
Oh, yeah. Bought this overpriced but heavily hyped Razer mouse and it wouldn't even work right until it had an internet connection. A MOUSE. I'd never encountered something so blatantly customer hostile in my life. Never even looked at another Razer product, never will, and will tell anyone who will listen that Razer is a terrible company full of objectively terrible people.
Razer was always low quality garbage at premium prices. Gamer marketing for you.
Gamer marketing for you.
Which I fell for. Fool me once and all that...
What do you recommend instead? In my opinion the Razer mice are always superior for FPS.
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I had a razer mouse and headphones, which from time to time crashed their driver server or whatever and nothing could help until the cold restart of the PC and a laptop. Razer. Never again.
This. Microsoft has chosen to allow this functionality, despite it being a very clear breach of trust with customers.
LG/Dell/et al should be shamed and blamed for even trying this shit in the first place, but it’s Microsoft who holds the blame for allowing such malware and spyware trash through their own update service.
You’re acting like Microsoft aren’t pushing malware themselves.
That's just a parallel fact, no one's "acting" like anything?
What were you actually trying to say?
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How in the world does that absolve Dell/etc, OR reduce Microsoft’s culpability for letting their update service be abused?
The Razer one is spot-on. I had a Razer mouse during the Windows 7 days and it kept running the installation setup despite declining it all the time, and it's so bad at times I recall seeing the setup trigger while on an ongoing Windows update when the screen was already locked up.
Logitech did something similar if I recall right.
Microsoft could end up being a higher barrier but how much do we really want that?
To me, it seems like LG is the one to blame.
> Microsoft could end up being a higher barrier but how much do we really want that?
For drivers installed automatically via Windows Update? Absolutely yes.
For software the user installs manually? No.
Microsoft has been coddling big devs (read: the devs that code this absolute garbage) for decades. They have this mentality "if we change anything, and anything breaks for current users, they're going to blame us instead of the vendor" and that might have been useful in the 95 days, but it's outmoded. They need to have the balls to break every vendor in 2026 if they're doing things they shouldn't.
I don't trust Microsoft not to be a modern capitalist, but I trust the companies they enable even less.