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.
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.
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.
Why do you say the 2016 voter turnout was low? It was very typical for US presidential elections in the last century[0]. Even if you only look at the swing states, voter participation was very normal.
If I recall, one cause that was claimed for Clinton's loss was very depressed / apathetic voter turnout. While I seriously doubt the contribution of social media to the vast number of those who abstained, that's the narrative that was pushed: an easy target to blame, and one consisting mostly of employees and leaders with politically sympathetic views.
The rest of the tech industry was implicated as well, which is even less reasonable, but makes more sense in terms of attempting to drum up political support by coercion: help us, or your employees will know you're helping our opponent.
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.
Oh, I completely agree. It's more a comment on the state of things than a criticism of individual people. Most people would be quite capable of making the change, but like you say they are different from me and have different priorities. And yet we are here because someone wanted to complain about what their chosen OS was doing.
Well, there are other options but for some reason the market stolidly keeps on being centred around two platforms while ignoring the alternatives. For most people those alternatives - whether they be Linux distributions, browser-centred platforms like Google's Chromebook, large-screen keyboard-controlled mobile platforms like Android or iOS or otherwise - seem to be off the radar even though they often would work better than Windows or MacOS for their application.
I would argue the habits of most people are restricted to a browser on the desktop. I doubt their OS and native applications are likely to be a barrier beyond simply how their UI looks.
That may be true, but in order for them to start that browser they have to have an OS. When they go their local store and buy a random computer they're going to get Windows or MacOS if they feel like splurging.
It's a non-trivial investment to install linux or to look for a PC coming with it preinstalled, especially if it's something they don't particularly care about (since they mostly use a browser).
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.
Use a different browser, and Apple forces it to use Safari to render, disabling it from doing its own blocking, bans it from having add-ons, and doesn't give it that 'content blocking'.
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
You don't need the terminal one bit to use a linux system the way an average person uses Windows. Install and go. Oh wait, "install" is something users of Windows dont have to do...
For most normal people, using Word and Powerpoint is pretty important. let me know when I can use and do word and powerpoint stuff on Ubuntu. No, the Librestack isn't a replacement.
I know it's not perfect yet, but the better and better it gets, the fewer reasons Microsoft is giving people to stick with Windows. I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft stopped selling the local version in a few years.
...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?
If you're using a Nvidia GPU sure, but it's still supported so I'm not sure what you were talking about in your original comment? Windows Nvidia drivers are also proprietary.
>GUI and gaming - barely supports what Windows did 5 years ago.
You can't be serious? Linux has had workspaces for forever, a feature that Windows finally enacted in Windows 10. Native tiling window manager support is nonexistent in Windows.
The more recent adoption of things like WSL and Windows Package Manager are just a few of the ways Windows trails behind Linux innovations that have existed for years.
The GUI experience in Linux is infinitely more customizable and frankly better than any experience I've had on Windows. Far less bloated and more open in it's overall design.
In terms of gaming I haven't had a snag in forever since Wine or Lutris can do pretty much everything I need.
If you're tech illiterate I can see why someone would think that Windows was superior in terms of innovation, otherwise its pretty clear that Linux has beat out Windows in most interactive user experiences over the past few years.
If you're a developer (which most users of HN are which was what my initial comment was based on) there's virtually no reason to use Windows over Linux.
As a developer you might want to avoid proprietary languages even if they seem to be free as in beer. It's always a tradeoff, so I understand, but now you and your users get served ads in order to develop and use your app.
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?
This is how it works in France. You have to let the local authority know you intend to vote and they'll put you on the "electoral list" and tell you where it is you have to go vote. It's usually a school or similar not far from your residence. You can't just randomly show up to a voting place.
You can either go to your local town hall or do it over the internet (tick a few boxes, attach a proof of citizenship and residency in the town / district (for Paris) and they'll send you a confirmation).
Every citizen is automatically allowed to vote. Registering basically tells your local county that ‘I live and vote here’ so they’ll send you ballot information and have your name on the correct checklist at your polling place.
Canada is kind of in a middle ground. You need to register to vote, but when you file your taxes there's a checkbox for "Allow Revenue Canada to share your information with Elections Canada" which basically auto-registers you when you file.
>You register to be able to vote? Why isn't every citizen automatically allowed to vote?
Voting isn't a Constitutionally guaranteed right in the US, it's a privilege. Although the Supreme Court and various Constitutional Amendments greatly restrict the power of states to disenfranchise their citizens, states do have that power (for instance convicted felons often lose the right to vote.)
Also, voter registration laws have traditionally been an effective way of suppressing African American and immigrant voters[0] (who tend to vote Democrat) so red states tend to vigorously support such laws.
> Also, voter registration laws have traditionally been an effective way of suppressing African American and immigrant voters[0] (who tend to vote Democrat) so red states tend to vigorously support such laws.
I've yet to see a single source that can show any significant effect of "voter suppression". One guy in 1836 doesn't count. If you truly think that minorities in America can't figure out how to register, than I would suggest that you check your patronizingly racist view of minorities.
The argument about linking Republican registration policies to Jim Crow etc. is worthless, because those were all Democratic laws that were opposed by Republicans. Stop blaming Republicans for the Democratic Party's legacy of populist racial identity politics.
The difference is subtle and depends on the country, state/province, and even down to the local municipality. I'd have not idea how to correctly title this for, say, South Sudan or East Timor.
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):
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)
Better location filtering aside, I don't think a suggestion to register to vote or to make sure to vote is really setting any bad precedent. More votes should be preferred by everyone in democracy.
Although, most other mature democracies, one doesn't actually need to register to vote but that's beside the point.
We can not be polarized to the point that uplifting the nations founding principle is seen as taking a side. I just don’t get your logic. At that point anyone encouraging voting is subtly siding with Democrats.
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.