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Posts tagged "desperate"

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Microsoft is getting desperate for more Bing users – but this annoying Edge pop-up is definitely not the way to go about it
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It seems Microsoft is up to its old tricks in trying to push people into using its products, once again, and this time the play is to persuade Edge users to switch their search engine to Bing.

As Windows Central spotted, developer Brad Sams (of Stardock fame) brought our attention to Microsoft’s latest bout of “anti-user behavior” in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

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Sams uses the Edge browser, but was prompted to switch to Bing as the default search engine rather than Google, as you can see in the above screenshot.

This is not the first time Microsoft has been promoting Bing in such a manner, alongside driving other services including Edge itself and OneDrive. (Search for a new browser in Edge, for example, and you’ll get a banner telling you there’s no need to download a different web browser, and the various reasons why).

The Bing search engine continues to struggle for market share against the might of Google, with Microsoft’s creation securing only 3.2% of the market as of November 2023, according to Statcounter.

Analysis: Bing headway – or lack of it

Microsoft hoped that Bing Chat, its AI now-renamed Copilot, would help to swell the ranks of Bing search users when it was launched early this year – but as we can see, that hasn’t happened. The Bing search engine had a 3% share at the beginning of 2023 going by Statcounter’s figures, so has notched that up 0.2% over the course of the year – a pretty miniscule uptick.

It’s safe to say, then, that the AI angle has not panned out for Bing search, although Microsoft has now started thinking about what its various products can do for Copilot, rather than what the chatbot can do for those products. (Witness the debut of Copilot in Windows 10, driving user numbers of the AI forward, rather than keeping Copilot as a carrot to drive migration to Windows 11).

At any rate, whatever piece of Microsoft’s vast jigsaw of products and services we’re talking about, we don’t want to see prompts in Edge, or Windows 11, or anywhere else, trying to twist the arms of users to switch to another Microsoft creation.

And fair enough, Google does this kind of thing too, pushing Chrome and its own search – but not as often as Microsoft in our experience. Can we please lay off the various prompts for 2024, Microsoft? Because if anything, throughout 2023 they seem to have become more prevalent again.

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Desperate for dark mode with Microsoft’s Bing AI chatbot? It’s now here
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Microsoft’s Bing chatbot and Bing search on desktop have just got dark mode, a feature that many folks have been keenly awaiting for some time.

Jordi Ribas, Microsoft’s CVP, Head of Engineering and Product for Bing, made the announcement on Twitter.

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As you can see, dark mode is rolling out over the next few days, so everyone should have it before the weekend.

Indeed, going by feedback to the tweet, many people are already using dark mode when chatting to the Bing AI (or using the Bing search website) on their desktop PC.

If you’re not sure whether you have the ability to turn on dark mode, just go to the Bing site, click the hamburger menu (three horizontal lines, top-right), and go to Appearance, where you’ll find light and dark modes (if available). There’s also an option to automatically use whatever system-wide choice you’ve made for the light or dark theme.

Analysis: Folks are over the dark side of the moon

This has happened earlier than expected, which is always good. Last week, we were told that dark mode was inbound for Bing AI (and search), but we were informed it would be here in a couple of weeks. It only took one week to appear, then, so Microsoft moved a bit faster than anticipated.

As you may recall, Bing AI also got the full rollout of Visual Search last week, so everyone now has that, too. This feature allows you to fling an image at the chatbot, and then get a reply imparting info on the pic (for example, if you have a picture of a historical building, Bing will tell you what – and where – it is).

You can combine that function with the chatbot’s image creation capabilities, too, and ask it to compose a similar image. (Say you’ve got a picture of a wolf in daylight, you could ask Bing to create something just like it, but at night with a full moon).

There’s an increasing amount of neat tricks that Bing AI can perform, though Google is speeding up its progress on Bard, too. The chatbot arms race is in full swing, for sure.

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Windows XP activation has been cracked – for those desperate enough to still use it
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The activation algorithm for Windows XP has been cracked, so those stuck not being able to get the ancient operating system working can now do so – and yes, there are folks who still use this OS.

Granted, it’s a seriously slim – vanishingly so – niche of Windows users, and we’ll come back to that. For most of us, though, this is just a curiosity.

As The Register reports, the encryption algorithm for Windows XP product activation has been cracked and reimplemented, with the details provided via a tinyapps blog post.

This means anyone can now generate a valid product key to install and activate Windows XP offline.

Microsoft turned off the servers required to activate Windows XP long ago, so you can’t use a genuine old product key to activate the OS. Well, not online anyway, though from what we can see on Reddit, Microsoft still facilitated a product activation on the phone back in 2020 – and The Register reckons this way still works.

Analysis: Desperate times, desperate measures…

So, if you don’t want to get on the phone and try to persuade Microsoft to activate your Windows XP when you have a genuine product key that can’t be validated online anymore, you can simply do-it-yourself at home (or in the office) with no fuss.

Why would you ever want to use Windows XP, though? Yes, it was a much-loved operating system without a doubt, for many reasons – mainly that it was such a big step forward for performance, and the quality of the interface, over its predecessor – but it’s obviously ridiculously outdated at this point in time.

However, some people must remain on Windows XP due to legacy software or hardware that won’t work with any more modern Microsoft operating system. These are most likely businesses, who might, say, have eye-wateringly expensive machines that only work with software that runs on XP and hasn’t been updated in forever.

In those cases, this crack could prove very useful, but clearly, anyone running Windows XP is exposing themselves to a whole lot of potential pain in terms of the vulnerabilities present in the OS. Which is why if you are in this boat, whatever you do, keep that Windows XP installation offline for obvious reasons.

Are you now wondering how many Windows XP users are still out there? According to the latest from analytics firm Statcounter, XP amounts to a 0.35% userbase out of all Windows versions (not all that far behind Windows 8, Microsoft’s most recently defunct OS which is on 1.28% as of April 2023).

Cracking rusty old Microsoft operating systems appears to be quite the trend at the moment. You may recall that Windows 95’s (relatively flimsy) activation was recently hacked, with a twist – ChatGPT was fooled into generating keys that worked with the OS (in a small number of cases).

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