10 Ways Microsoft Can Ruin Your Day

IT SERVICES FOR CAPE COD

At Nifty's we want to warn our friends about the risks that can
affect their computer systems before serious problems happen. When you use a PC, most likely you're using Microsoft Windows,
the operating system that runs all of your apps. Even from the start, Windows is not set up to best serve your needs.
Infamous safety and stability issues are not the only trouble. There are a number of unpleaseant surprises that can get in the way of your daily business. And so, Nifty's presents...

10 Ways Microsoft
Can Ruin Your Day

1. Cloud Account

Microsoft may have a copy of your private files stored on their servers right now. Most users have already been diverted into the company’s proprietary ‘cloud software ecosystem’. Privacy concerns aside, this umbilical with Microsoft can disrupt the functionality of your Windows system. It’s intended to lure you into paying a permanent subscription fee for cloud storage and software services.

click here to learn more When you first set up your PC, chances are you were led to link your login to a Microsoft cloud account. Do you have an email account attached to your Windows login? Do you enter a PIN when you start your PC? Most likely, you have a Microsoft cloud account.

This is a completely optional feature, but the automatic setup is designed to streamline the process of connecting you to Microsoft’s online system. They manipulate users into a dependency on the cloud by presenting it as normal and necessary.

Like all cloud options, it costs money to have a reasonable amount of space. You get 5GB for free. Automatic backups fill up the free space in no time, and then you’ll see urgent warnings about how your backups aren’t working. Presenting this as a serious problem is Microsoft’s way of convincing you to sign up for the subscription.

The way OneDrive integrates with Windows file storage can cause problems, too. Files can appear in folders on your computer while no actual data is contained within. These are cloud mirrored files that need to be downloaded. In worst case scenarios, files that programs depend upon can be affected by the cloud system ‘freeing up space’ to unburden your C: drive.

The end goal is to get you to pay Microsoft FOREVER. The Microsoft 365 package offers cloud-based file sync/backups and easy sharing, but there are better options for cloud storage/backups that are less likely to mess up your whole system in some random accident.

2. BitLocker

When this security feature is active, Microsoft can lock you out of your own computer (and your personal files) if you lose access to your cloud account. Many PC manufacturers have it turned on by default without notifying their customers. It’s meant to protect your files if your computer is stolen, but the implementation can lead to disasters where you could lose everything.

click here to learn more Encryption can be a good thing, but only if it works for you and you’re in charge of it. This is especially true when it comes to encrypting your own personal files.

Among manufacturers of consumer-grade PCs, this is actually a popular option that they turn on by default. We’ve encountered BitLocker on brand new laptops made by Dell, HP, ASUS, Lenovo and many others. In none of these cases did they make any effort to warn the customer of the risks involved with storing data on an encrypted drive.

The BitLocker system was designed with enterprise server administrators and IT supervisors in mind. It was later adapted (poorly) into a consumer-level utility to compete with similar services on other platforms like Apple’s FileVault or Linux’s standard encryption. Oversights like the poor handling of recovery keys has made it into a real hazard for the average user.

You can find out if your system has BitLocker simply by searching for “encryption” in the settings app. If you’re reading this from inside your Windows PC, try clicking this link as a shortcut.

If you can't find encryption options in your settings, you most likely do not have BitLocker enabled. If you DO find BitLocker enabled, then you must handle this carefully.

When BitLocker is enabled, you absolutely must have your recovery key or fully registered Microsoft cloud identity. The key is automatically copied to the cloud account if that was set up 'normally'.

Unfortunately, it's very possible to have BitLocker active WITHOUT any working cloud account, meaning no cloud backup of the recovery key.

3. Botched Updates

The classic disaster. Microsoft’s updates for Windows are automatic and frequent. If the update process is interrupted you can end up with an incomplete or broken Windows system. In some extreme cases, the broken updates can cause enough trouble to require reinstallation of the entire operating system.

click here to learn more For many years now, Microsoft has had a policy where online updates to the Windows operating system are not optional. There is no way to safely turn off the update system, and attempting to do so can break Windows.

Given how frequently Microsoft needs to patch the many security flaws in their design, regular updates are the only way to make sure you are safe from the latest vulnerabilities. It can sometimes seem as though the company takes advantage of this, as many urgent updates are bundled with changes to the system that are unrelated to security. There is no “emergencies only” mode for the update feed.

There are plenty of ways to accidentally interrupt or interfere with Windows updates. The most common scenario is power interruption on portable computers where the battery has died during the update process. Power outages or hardware failure can also cause this sort of interruption.

The consequences can be catastrophic, as some updates contain major changes to the operating system that might be rendered half-finished after any such interruption. Sometimes there are uglier results where the system or some software is partly changed and appears to function normally until something goes wrong enough to show symptoms.

To avoid problems with Windows updates, we reluctantly encourage our friends to cooperate with Microsoft during the update process. They have final say on whether or not it happens, and the best any user can do is prepare for the event. If you own a laptop or other portable PC device, make sure it stays plugged in when you’re not using it, just in case.

4. Misleading Options

Many of the configuration menus in Windows are convoluted and difficult to navigate. Important settings that affect user privacy and system usability are hidden in this labyrinth. You have to dig through poorly labeled subsections to turn off advertisements and other user harassment. Worst of all, at every turn you are encouraged to favor and embrace Microsoft’s apps and services above all others.

click here to learn more For years, Microsoft’s mechanisms for settings and configuration have had a major identity crisis. For whatever reason, many obsolete or otherwise outmoded mechanisms still exist. Namely, the Control Panel is mostly intact following the Windows 7 days from over a decade ago.

The old system had been replaced twice over by Settings apps that were meant to be complete substitutes, but you can easily find awkward little links or buttons that redirect between the Settings app and Control Panel to fill in gaps not covered by one or the other.

Despite all the trouble just managing the disparities between the legacy tools and the latest tools, Microsoft’s focus seems to be on designing interfaces that direct you towards what they want you most to see. That typically means anything that encourages the use of a cloud account.

Certain sections are conspicuously hard to navigate, such as the “Notifications and Actions” area which, in Windows 11, has an extra subsection to expand before you can turn off some of Microsoft’s worst nagging mechanisms.

All in all, the better approach these days is to rely more on the old-fashioned Control Panel. It looks like Microsoft won’t succeed in replacing it any time soon.

5. Edge Browser

Speaking of Microsoft apps, none is more innocuous than the successor to Internet Explorer. The modern Edge browser might have the same code base as Google Chrome, but it’s far more hostile to the user. From top to bottom, it’s built to reinforce dependency on Microsoft-made apps, and every action leans into encouraging the use of Microsoft’s Bing search engine.

6. Bing Search

Microsoft’s competitor to Google’s search engine leaves much to be desired. Their poor filtering of dangerous websites and their incentives for marketers make the whole experience invasive and unsafe. Worst of all, Bing is integrated into the Windows search system. Trying to search your computer for files can mean waiting for a stream of advertisements and web content to load in first.

7. Antivirus Confusion

Thanks to Microsoft’s inaction, for over 20 years it has been common knowledge that Windows PCs need protection from viruses. A massive industry of third party protection software has been built around vulnerabilities that exist thanks to the design of Windows. Recently, Microsoft has improved its own built-in antivirus to the point where third party software is usually not necessary on an ordinary PC.

8. Scammer Confusion

Have you ever been called by Microsoft? Have you ever tried to look up a phone number to contact the company for tech support? The majority of “Microsoft” calls are actually scammers pretending to provide official tech support. They know you are likely to worry about your Windows PC, and they’ll say just about anything to make you think you have urgent problems that they should solve for a large fee.

9. Advertisements

In these modern times, corporations have strong incentives to profit from their customers in new and invasive ways. Quite often it’s done through advertisement data collection. Microsoft’s software includes many mechanisms for distributing advertiser content. More importantly, they collect data on how you interact with those advertisements and provide that information to advertising entities.

10. Windows 11

Microsoft’s newest operating system was redesigned to more efficiently direct users towards cloud dependency and advertisement exposure. This decision has made it clear that Windows will continue to be a vehicle for customer exploitation. In order to use any of your apps that require Windows, you’ll be forced to navigate through Microsoft’s latest software designs, for better or for worse.

What to Do?

With so many ways for things to go wrong, using Windows might seem like a bad choice. Unfortunately, most popular software requires Microsoft Windows. At Nifty’s we provide services to resolve these issues and many others. Our standard “Nifty Windows” template is designed to overcome even the worst offenses by Microsoft.