Reddit – “Windows 10 prompted me to register to vote”

[AH4oFVbPT4f8]

To check yourself, press the Windows Start Key and enter a single letter to start the search then backspace the letter.

The message will be at the bottom of the start menu. If you are on a new install of Windows, the message instead will be Try Edge. Once you clear that message and try again, you'll get the register to vote message.

[kyriakos]

i got it too after trying this a couple of times. First time i got Covid Information link, 2nd time nothing, 3rd time i got the voting. I am not in US, I have no US keyboard, no US locale so i guess MS just sends these out globally.

[Fellshard]

Big tech in the US feels responsible - and has been scolded - for the results of the 2016 election, so this is their mea culpa: to help drive out complacent voters.

[s9w]

That sounds like 2016 something went wrong. The voter turnout was low, but not spectacularly low.

[notadog]

Screenshot of what the notification looks like: https://i.imgur.com/LHfKkDh.png

[captain_price7]

Fyi, this prompt was shown to a Dutch user, to register for US election.

[vladvasiliu]

Can confirm, get this on my work PC, a domain-joined Win 10 Pro in France. We don't have any operations outside of the french mainland.

Location is set to "France", regional settings to "English (Europe)" and display language to "English (US)".

[gruez]

My guess is that the detection is based on language settings rather than region/keyboard settings.

[phkahler]

Why TF are people using an OS that has ads? Whatever the reason I just dont get it.

[Waterluvian]

I wish I knew the secret to tackling this all too common error in perception.

People experience the world differently than you do. People have different priorities and needs and expectations than you do. And none of that makes them wrong or inferior or ignorant or foolish or anything to be confused by.

[SkyPuncher]

Perhaps, because there are only two options for most people - OSX and Windows.

OSX machines are prohibitively expensive for most, so Windows is the only reasonable option.

[gruez]

Same reason people use an operating system ecosystem that is hostile to adblockers and is a data collection platform for one of the biggest advertisers: because they don't care.

[haunter]

Cause Macs are overpriced and not everyone has the will and patience to tinker in the Linux terminal for hours if any given X hardware or software doesn't work for whatever random reason

[SomeHacker44]

...because it runs almost all the same apps on computers with decent keyboards and physical F-keys and better processor/GPU options at much lower cost, and can have the ads turned off?

[ianai]

Welcome to a world where the market power is solely at the corporation level. The customer is no longer always right. They’re the product.

[sm4rk0]

...and they are paying for it!

[AH4oFVbPT4f8]

Being a C# developer on a code base that is not on .net core, what options are there other than Windows?

[1f60c]

OP: why did you feel the need to editorialize “Windows 10 prompted me to register to vote” into “Windows 10 prompted me to vote”?

[bluecmd]

Maybe they didn't know there is a difference? I'm from Europe and I didn't. You register to be able to vote? Why isn't every citizen automatically allowed to vote?

[phantom_rehan]

Oh, sorry for that. Didn't realize. I live in India and thought it doesn't make a difference. Changing the title

[rehemiau]

"We're all living in America"...

[hprotagonist]

ist vunderbar

[Jonnax]

The start menu integrates Bing web search so I'm presuming it's an advert from that.

It also looks like you need to change a registry key if you want to disable it.

[DaiPlusPlus]

For some reason they changed the registry entry (and Group Policy) you need to tweak to disable Bing's search integration in Windows 10 2004, but instructions are here (disclaimer: I wrote the answer):

https://superuser.com/a/1579780/41739

[bob1029]

This kind of shit is why I am starting to use Windows Server 2019 as my daily driver workstation OS.

[DaiPlusPlus]

Windows Server 2016 and 2019 is the same OS as Windows 10 LSTB/LSTC.

That said, I'm running the non-LTSB/LTSC builds of Windows but I think I've gotten all of the underdocumented group policy settings set to disable all of the unwanted Bing/ads/web integration. The only thing I'm dreading now is the next unexpected and unwanted feature-update that will trash all of my files on-disk.

I'd be fine with automatic major OS updates if Windows had its own partition or physical volume to go-crazy in while my own silo'd programs, configuration data, and personal files were on a physically separate drive with a hardware interlock to prevent the OS from writing to it unless I gave it permission.

(Yes, I lost 2 years worth of files in the October 2018 Windows feature update because I was using folder redirection)

[1f60c]

> this is indeed a shitty precedent

Why?

[starfleet_bop]

Seems that the left wing tech companies are getting nervous.

[input_sh]

Here's a simple question to ask yourself: do the workers own the company? If the answer is no, it's not a left wing company by any stretch.