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Asus bombards Windows 11 with christmas.exe malware-like Christmas wreath banner
(www.windowslatest.com)
this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2024
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That won’t get rid of it unless you also manually go into the BIOS and disable the install ASUS Armoury Crate setting as explained in the article.
If you don’t do this it will automatically reinstall even on a fresh install of Windows. Some of these bloatware programs will even install without an internet connection! This absolutely ludicrously stupid feature is called WPBT and is used by lots of manufacturers. Luckily it doesn’t work on Linux (at least for now…).
That's wild that it's a BIOS setting. Just an extra level of fuck you.
It’s for the more novice users who can assemble a PC but don’t ever think go download / install drivers afterwards.
Most of the motherboard OEMs do this. I get a lot fewer tickets where the root cause of the issue can be boiled down to “never installed drivers afterwards installing Windows”, which is also helped by the fact that many drivers are also served through Windows Update.
Operational drivers, sure i can see some valid use there.
But this is crapware.
I’m quite happy to install it, disable its startup background functions, and then use it to install / update drivers periodically. Much less tedious than doing it the manual way, especially when managing 10-20 systems per week.
There’s a bunch of other potential functions but I simply don’t bother with them.
It makes sense on my ROG Ally X.
Yup. And here i am, always telling people to first read the linked article, before they write.
I don't think it reinstalls itself if you install Linux
For now...
The user is prompted to install the application.
According to this article: https://www.techpowerup.com/248827/asus-z390-motherboards-automatically-push-software-into-your-windows-installation it has already installed services on your computer that persist restarts by the time you are prompted to install Armoury Crate. In my opinion that is not acceptable at all.
I understand and respect your preference.
A “power user” is typically going to go through the UEFI/BIOS settings immediately after assembling their machine to configure them to their liking. Having that preference, you likely fall within that category. I would add that, at this point, this practice is about 6 generations old at this point and in use by most motherboard vendors.
As the article mentions, the feature could be considered useful. These products aren’t designed specifically for power users. Having network access and a frictionless path to driver deployment is ultimately beneficial to the majority of consumers who are going to interact with this hardware.
I would completely agree with you if that was what this feature was being used for, however most manufacturers use it to install bloatware instead of drivers which is not acceptable in my opinion.
Not to mention the huge security risk of running exe files at boot up that could be exploited by malicious people. I’m sure manufacturers aren’t releasing a new bios update every time they update their software so old versions could have unpatched vulnerabilities…