Microsoft just force restarted my Windows 10 PC to install more unwanted apps

I stepped away from my computer for dinner party, halfway through writing a level for The Scepter. When I got back, I couldn't consider my eyes.

Windows 10 had restarted my calculator without permission yet again — to install yet another forced OS update onto my solid state drive.

The craziest part: When my machine finished rebooting, it at once contained the accurate thing I'd been composition just about earlier I was rudely interrupted. Microsoft had installed unsolicited, unwanted web app versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Prospect onto my figurer.

A screenshot of the web apps that Microsoft force-installed on my PC. — *Seriously, the story you're reading right in real time started away as a news Post about this occurrent to* ***other*** *people.*

OK, it's not every bit bad as when my entire figurer screen got taken over by an discarded copy of Microsoft Edge. That was rightfully egregious.

No, this time Microsoft is merely sneaking unwanted web apps onto my PC — and using my Windows 10 Set forth Menu as footloose advertizing space. Did I mention that icons for Microsoft Position apps have magically appeared in my Start Carte du jour, even though I've never one time installed Office on this computer?

These aren't full moon free copies of Office, aside the way. They'rhenium just shortcuts to the World Wide Web version you could already access in whatever web web browser of your choice, which double as advertisements to pay for a more fully featured copy.

Because they're web apps, information technology's non same they adopt any space on my figurer, and I assume't really take care them in my Start Menu. They're among the least offensive bloatware I've seen, and I never really view the Starting line Bill of fare anyhow — my taskbar and search bar have stretch been enough for me.

Notwithstandin, they're the latest cogent evidence that Microsoft doesn't prize your ownership of your own PC, the latest example of Microsoft installing anything IT likes in a Windows update aweigh to and including bloatware, and the latest example of Microsoft caring more about the bottom rail line than whether a fewer people might recede their do work when Windows suddenly shuts down their PC. Luckily, I didn't lose any exploit today, but a supporter of mine recently did:

Microsoft seems to think our computers are free advertising space, a place where information technology tail end egotistically advertize its other products — even though they were told roundly in the '90s that even bundling a browser was not OK. Forthwith, they're bundling a browser you can't uninstall, and a fit of PWA net apps that launch in that same browser. (Yes, they fire up Edge even if you've fixed a different browser as default.)

As I've argued previously, decisions like this subvert the one good argument Microsoft actually has for mandatory updates — that they provide important security patches that keep computers (yours and others) safe. That's a harder literary argument when the most visible difference of opinion after a original update is an attempt to make more money!

Like ZDNet veteran Microsoft reporter Mary Jo Foley notes, this isn't just an experiment happening to some Windows Insiders. I'm not signed finished with the Windows Insider program on this PC. The company hasn't deigned to respond to Foley's requests for comment hitherto, but let's see if that changes next week.