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Can confirm. This happened to me yesterday on my Windows 11 machine. Uninstallation was only listed in the Microsoft Store -> Library.
Not great, but also not at all surprising.

Not sure about other solutions, but one suggested workaround here would be to silently uninstall Windows without consent.

And Razer, Logitech, nvidia and everyone else who has it's driver package accepted into WU.

No, you can't have a "(o) just the driver" checkbox because... honestly there are a lot of reasons and the device manufacturers are the guys who demand that in the first place.

Your OS silently installs malware. Doesn't get much worse than this.
Workaround:

  gpedit.msc
  Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Device Installation
  Prevent automatic download of applications associated with device metadata
  Set to enabled
  OK
On home editions sans gpedit.msc:

  sysdm.cpl
  Hardware tab
  Click Device Installation Settings
  Under 'Do you want to automatically download manufacturers' apps for your devices?', select 'No'
  Save Changes
The real workaround is to delete system32.

I had this shit with my alienware monitor. Doesn’t happen on Linux.

They used to call this spyware/malware. Now it's a regular practice by eng. teams and managers inside these big corp. Well played guys :) Congrats with new type of tricks
If you're using Windows on a personal device in the first place, you're pretty loudly declaring that your consent doesn't matter anyway.

That's not your computer, that's Microsoft's computer. You're the threat model they lock it down against, you're the schmuck that keeps them fed, and you're the possible terrorist/hacker to be surveilled, tagged, tracked, and monitored.

If you care about consent as it relates to your use of technology, you shouldn't be using Windows in the first place, and this has been obvious for well over a decade now.

Last 2 were LG, been looking at a new one but I guess I'll go with another brand that has their panels.
it's worth noting that the price of these monitors got cut in half due to this news -- great for the linux users out there
Why do people even install 'drivers' for things like monitors. (Or usb devices running 'standard' protocols). The OS handles these just fine by itself.
This is so much worse that the title makes it out to be:

  1. Your OS installs malware (technically manufacturers software) from a 3rd party vendor in background, zero user interaction
  2. Happens as soon as you or anyone with physical access plug in a device into the HDMI port
  3. That malware has internet and full system access, no sandboxing
  4. It starts with every system boot
  5. This software gets installed when you plug in a new LG monitor
  6. OR ALREADY HAD AN OLDER LG MONITOR PLUGGED IN, BECAUSE LG APPARENTLY ROLLED THIS OUT FOR MANY OLDER MODELS TOO!!
  7. And yes, if you think that's horrendous, as mentioned in the video below, that also applies to 'Professional' LG monitors!

This situation has.. no precedent as far as I can tell..

GamersNexus has a video diving deeper into what LG did here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9uefFYe6bM

Logitech have been doing this for years
I understand shitty brands want to do this.

The bit I don’t understand is Microsoft making an infrastructure that allows this, lets shine the shame light here.

That's just living in the Windows world.

After start menu ads, I don't understand why people are being surprised anymore.

But thanks to Secure Boot, your computer is secure. /s

When will people understand that malware is signed by the vendor ?

If this were a person doing this, they would be in jail.
> Your OS installs malware

Malware??

> 1. Your OS installs malware ...

Your OS is malware.

We're talking about Windows here.

In your mind. Average joes do not even know there is a firewall in windows, which is off by default. Actually none of the games, not even chrome respects the built in Windows firewall. If you have configured a firewall, it will make your life much harder, since almost nobody designs software based on the assumption that a firewall will exist. So almost everyone flies without one.
LG Electronics display monitor as Trojan Horse

Except this Trojan Horse isn't offered for free

there's tons of frustratingly equally bad precedent.

for some reason it also seems like a lot of this companion software from oems is often written by part time contract / interns.

years ago there was a classic example of iirc a logitech mouse driver that was writing the coordinate position of the mouse at ~100hz to the registry.

microsoft should be applying _at least_ app store level / whql level rigor to these, but it seems if the oem is large enough they'll just gladly yolo a 2gb package of crap onto your machine because the oem said "this our driver package"

> no precedent

the asus bios will automatically install armoury crate on a clean windows install

in the bios:

advanced -> armoury crate -> install armoury crate -> enabled (by default)

In Korea, pretty much all devices come with Windows. It's hard to live outside of Windows. Most programming is done in CPP,C#, and even when people use C, the majority are working on top of an IDE. The OS kernel layer only really appears in things like Samsung phones—the vast majority of work is on the application layer, and most consumers are on Windows on their desktops. It seems unavoidable
Shame on Microsoft for allowing this
Last time a company abused platform driver delivery to install adware, Microsoft threatened to pull their drivers altogether.

But those were different times...

we finally cracked self-installing software, it just turns out the payload is McAfee and the installer is an HDMI cable
They also come with terms of service which assert that you will inform everyone in the vicinity of your TV that their voices are being recorded by your TV.
Assuming they don't get a revenue cut, pushing back on Microsoft can in principle be effective here.

Microsoft decides what happens here, and presumably today they just take it on trust that hardware makers know what software to install. New driver? Sure. McSpam installer? OK. Maybe they have a guideline saying "Don't ship unrelated garbage" but today it's not enforced because why would you do that?

If the Microsoft customers (particularly larger corporate customers) tell Microsoft they hate this that policy will get tightened or if there isn't a policy one is introduced, and outfits like LG get told if you do this again we're taking away your update privileges, 'cos our customers hated this. Because (as I said assuming MS don't get a taste) this is all downside for Microsoft.

Pushing back on LG will be less likely to work because you already bought their product, so at most you can insist you'll forgo LG next iteration and they know such pledges evaporate in practice usually. Whereas Microsoft has contract negotiations every day, somewhere a $$$ contract is being renegotiated next week and if "Yeah, these LG popups suck" comes up - even if it's not a corporate system but the VP's niece's video editing suite for her vlog that's strictly unrelated - that Microsoft sales droid reports this was an impediment and it's on the list of things that don't benefit Microsoft.

I am tired of this. LG is now on my blacklist alongside EA and Blizzard Entertainment for their anti consumer practices. I can't change them, I can't change policies about it. I can choose to not buy.
I think this is how they are going to make us pay rent for what we bought. They will make everything unusable unless you pay more and make some cuckoo TOS saying that you agree to be held in contempt if you circumvent their measurements.

Honestly, if we don't push it back hard, it will only get worse and worse. Why we were cancelling people if they used wrong pronouns and suddenly we got tired of doing the same with stuff that we all should agree on that is terrible.

Beyond tired of the rape mentality from Microsoft and other evil mega corp's.

Remember when you used to own your "personal" computer?

At this point, such shenanigans are to be expected when using Windows.

I guess my next machine will have a VGA port ;-)

And no Windows.

VGA still has EDID which this is based on, so this situation could've happened in that era if companies were less hostile.

But this is definitely something Windows does.