An unsolicited Christmas card through a letterbox would have at least been less worrying.
I got on this on Windows 10 too.
At first I thought I got a virus or something, but then realized this was some ASUS bullshit.
WDYM “malware like”? It is malware.
Another reason to not by any Asus stuff.
“do not panic – your device is not compromised.”
meme(always has been)
There is nothing wrong with your device. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We control the horizontal. We control the vertical.
…We control the treble, and all your bass belongs to us too.
/incredibly ancient joke
If you think the zoomers don’t know about Zero Wing you got another thing coming, buster 😎
I suddenly have the UHF theme song stuck in my head. We gonna make a couch potatah outta you!
if someone not you installing crap you dont want isn’t compromised then i dont what is
Haha, how fortuitous for me that my new SDD arrived over the weekend and I used the opportunity to install Linux on my Asus laptop.
When you turn on your PC and notice that there’s a huge Christmas banner on your desktop, do not panic – your device is not compromised.
Hah, well a vendor just pushed unapproved executable to the device and ran it without consent. Under any definition or other context it’s definitely compromised.
This is why I boycott Logitech, they started pushing the Logitech Download Assistant through Windows Update as soon as you connect a Logitech mouse/keyboard.
It autoruns not only when it is first installed but on every startup.
It is rather annoying to try and uninstall it, I don’t get why there has been so little backlash against this…
Microsoft permitting this is devaluing Windows Update, the driver (.inf) should be installed automatically, any executable file that WU wants to download and run on your computer should just bring up a small Windows notification saying something like this:
The device you just installed requests to download and run the following program from Windows Update:
Logitech Download Assistant
Will you approve or reject this request? Approve/Reject
It is just terrible that this is permitted
This is why I boycott Logitech
You should boycott Microsoft instead. As you say, they’re the ones permitting it.
im guessing you use arch btw
I would if I could, but I work with Windows and if I migrate to Linux at home, my skills in Windows would dimminish
Wouldn’t your skills be kept sharp by using it at work?
It doesn’t work like that for me I am afraid.
“skills in windows” is a hilarious thing to type. Merry Christmas.
Work a help desk shift supporting windows users and see if you still say that.
Sigh, why, why do you do feel the need to put other’s down over something as irrelevant as an operating system?
But since Windows require zero skills, then even you may stand a chance to solve the following tasks that I have had to deal with within Windows.
- List all users in the local admin group of all workstations, if a group is part of the local admin group, expand it and list individual users, oh and some users/groups are still on an old domain.
- Whitelist a new USB device in GPO.
- Make a report of all computers in the organization, get the current system model number, memory, storage space, free storage space, check weather or not the computer is ready for Windows 11, sort the list by department and primary user.
I’m in IT too. My experience is that if you use Linux at home and Windows at work you just end up skilled at both. At one point I was even using a Macbook at work (wouldn’t have even been a consideration if WSL was just a little better), using a Windows jump server or a VM for my Windows-y ops, and I became skilled at all 3 OS’s.
All of that is to say that your skill won’t decrease if Windows is still being used, especially if you’re using it in a professional context.
This is really the wrong sub thread to discuss this, this was my reply to someone laughing at the concept of Windows skills.
As for you comment, I am glad that it works like that for you, it doesn’t for me.
These weirdos have Linux as their entire identity and it’s become all consuming for some of them.
I just block anyone who is shilling Linux too much as it gets boring quickly, and I use Linux myself as of recently but it isn’t all that amazing and it requires a good amount of configuration, contrary to what people on here will tell you.
You’re quite fragile. Sorry for upsetting you.
How likely are any of those at home?
Powershell is very useful to use at home, maybe not in those exact tasks, but it is a Windows skill.
It’s almost as if the PC doesn’t belong to you anymore
Cannot confirm, I have a g903, paired mouse pad, and their brio webcam. I only have the G Hub, which I installed manually. Maybe they stopped this behavior?
It won’t be listed under programs and features, here you have more info:
https://www.tenforums.com/software-apps/147661-how-remove-logitech-download-assistant.html
Yeah, I have neither the mentioned files in sys32 or the entry in dev mgr. This might be discontinued?
I had windows update try to brick the BIOS on my Lenovo workstation recently. I can’t believe Microsoft and manufacturers do this kind of shit. Luckily my workstation had dual BIOS so I could recover it. Between that and the fact that lenovo manufacturer locks their processors I would have waited until I could afford a supermicro had I known.
That shits on Lenovo because I never had an issue with Microsoft updating the UEFI of HP machines of our clients.
I’m not trying to protect lenovo. I think they are a shit company now, and I should have some my research better before buying my computer, but they aren’t the only ones doing this. Anyone who’s done BIOS updates knows that shouldn’t be done automatically, but manufacturers and Microsoft seem to think it’s a good idea to push it through automatic updates.
Especially when there’s a chance that the bios update resets the tpm and if the user has enabled bitlocker (automatically done in background without user consent on windows 11 if using a Microsoft account) then they need to type the decryption key to boot again.
Happened twice on my laptop
I never knew about this (using Linux) but when I plugged my mouse onto a friend’s laptop and suddenly a big banner animated onscreen, my heart sank lol. No idea how this works but it was pretty unexpected.
I try not to be too Linux fanboish these days, but what in the ever loving fuck is that about? Windows sounds like it’s reverted to 90s/early 2000s novelty crap and browser toolbars.
I get this request sometimes on my work machine. Guess what? I don’t even have the rights to install it. Insanity
It sucks because I’ve always liked Logitech hardware. Though I suppose you don’t need to run the software suite (or if you’re on Linux it isn’t an option anyway).
Welp, seems ASUS motherboards also push this by default: https://www.techpowerup.com/248827/asus-z390-motherboards-automatically-push-software-into-your-windows-installation
During testing for our Intel Core i9-9900K review we found out that new ASUS Z390 motherboards automatically install software and drivers to your Windows 10 System, without the need for network access, and without any user knowledge or confirmation. This process happens in complete network-isolation (i.e. the machine has no Internet or LAN access).
This is how cheats are installed on LAN competitions
What does it do with Linux?
The ASUS UEFI firmware exposes an ACPI table to Windows 10, called “WPBT” or “Windows Platform Binary Table”. WPBT is used in the pre-built OEM industry, and is referred to as “the Vendor’s Rootkit.” Put simply, it is a script that makes Windows copy data from the BIOS to the System32 folder on the machine and execute it during Windows startup - every single time the system is booted.
So, sounds like a Windows-specific
vulnerabilityfeature.Make a read only file/folder with the same name and the script should fail. But that is horseshit.
Holy shit. I got Logitech peripherals, and an ASUS motherboard. I’m glad I’m on Linux. I still have Windows installed, and booted into it around 2 weeks ago, after it having lied dormant for four months. I didn’t notice anything being installed, but maybe I had to reboot first.
Quite possibly, my peripherals and motherboard are all too old to have this anti-feature. Do you know if there is a list of which of their hardware this is the case for?
Damnit, I always preferred Logitech mice. I guess I might have bought my last one.
What’s Logitech have to do with it
Similarly (above), I can’t confirm this either, on two different Asus boards, still in support/updates. I’m assuming this requires their software to be installed, which there’s no point to, so I didn’t bother… Maybe it’s part of their armory crate system, which can (should) be disabled in the bios…
Windows is malware
It is a part of the ASUS Armoury Crate software that is pre-installed on some ASUS PCs.
Always flash new OS if you buy a computer.
Which distro do you recommend?
This cracks me up that everyone has a different distro to recommend… But I’ve tried many and OpenSUSE Tumbleweed was the standout that I’ve decided to stick with indefinitely.
Linux Mint or de-snapped Kubuntu.
Hi there. I just installed Kubuntu on a spare machine, but I ran into a problem with the snaps. How would one “de-snap” it? Can you point me in the right direction?
- Remove Snap packages
snap remove <package-name>(To check snap PKG installed, run
snap list)
- Uninstall Snapd
sudo apt purge snapd- Remove leftover files
sudo rm -rf /var/cache/snapd/and/snap`.- Optionally install Flatpak if you want an alternative.
sudo apt install flatpak. Don’t forget to visit flathub.
Lemmy Gold 🥇
Universal Blue is my go-to. Their OSs feel like the future. They are so easy to use and low maintenance. The upgrades happen in the background and apply automatically when you restart your computer.
There are three flavors: Bazzite for gaming Bluefin and Aurora for basic workstations and developers
I went with Aurora for myself because I like the developer focused stuff. But I also do a lot of gaming. Even though it’s not gaming focused, it’s still great for gaming.
My wife uses it on her laptop, too. She doesn’t give a shit what her OS is as long as it works and she can use the browser.
If you want minimal hassle, Mint is the deal.
EndeavourOS
Even for beginners it’s got a fantastic starting layout and default packages, but it’s still basically “just Arch Linux” where it counts so you get the best of both worlds.
+1 for EndeavourOS here. For 90% of what I do, it was a virtually seamless transition. Only hang up is a few games, VR, etc.
Garuda is probably a better option if the focus is gaming. It’s the same idea, just with a focus on gaming hardware and software ready to go, out of the gate.
That’s in the bios, it’s a pcie device that windows allows to inject root level code into your environement, you have to turn it off and hope nothing ever spoofs that pcie id because that’s a permanent hardware rootkit into your pc like EFI
That’s in the bios, it’s a pcie device that windows allows to inject root level code into your environement
What. The. Fuck. Are they the only one to install their crap so deep?
Haha no. My work computer is HP and has similar shit.
Msi tomahawk has it too.
Gotta go in the bios and make sure your motherboard isn’t “helping” with drivers.
Which model is that?
Doesnt sound like an Elite/Pro model.I dont know the exact model, but i think it is marketed B2B specifically. It advertises its “wolf security” on boot, which according to HP “offers hardware-enforced security layers, from motherboard to cloud, to prevent and contain malware, phishing, ransomware, and remote access attacks. It also provides solutions for patching, privileged access, remote management, incident recovery, and print security.”
So it is something that allows HP access on the BIOS level.
No my ROG board does the same.
ROG is Asus.
Also I don’t think I’ve ever had this issue with my previous, nor my current rog boards. I never use their drivers CD so maybe that helps
Just because a the brand is owned by them doesnt mean they do the same.
ROG is model line of Asus, not a secondary brand. ROG is to Asus what F-series trucks are to Ford.
Or we could all be informed consumers and… research products before we buy them to avoid these kinds of issues.
I’d never buy an Asus product. I hear they’re a nightmare when it comes to customer service, so in avoiding them, I avoid that problem.
I swore myself to never buy an ROG PSU (very noisy fan. Never had an issue with my seagate one being noisy) or a motherboard (armory crate).
Are other (gaming) brands also so shit to have me reset all settings before updating the firmware? e.g Gigabyte, AsRock, EVGA?
Can this “feature” be turned off on Windows?
Edit: nvm, I read the article
This will be executed even on new fresh installation oob.
Yet another vendor-bootkit?
He didn’t say to flash Windows. 😉
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.
automatically reinstall
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…
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…
How was this even approved for deployment?
it is a very subtile ad for linux
Sure, ASUS is real bad for doing this, but Windows 11 users kind of have it coming to them.
don’t blame the victim for owning a computer.
We blame dog owners when their dog mauls them.
But yes, I meant it when I said ASUS was bad for doing this.
This might be an unpopular take here on Lemmy but macOS, Linux or Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC IoT 2021 aren’t for everyone… Hell, I wouldn’t expect typical users to even know how to reinstall their operating system at all.
I just can’t bring myself to believe that Windows 11 is or ever will be right for somebody. It’s going to cause more frustration to use it than to figure out an alternative.
It is almost the same as Windows 8 underneath. W11 for almost everyone should feel just like a new skin with couple more features. There are some annoyances, but I have not seen anything yet that I would consider dealbreaking.
They put ads in the startmenu and take “snapshots” of your machine every few seconds to train AI to replace office workers.
At least on Pro / Enterprise / Education edition there are no ads. Maybe I have disabled them, no idea. It could be that this is a thing in Home edition that cannot be easily disabled, have never used Home edition in my life to be honest.
Recall is an optional feature that will run on specific CPUs and it will be local unless something recently changed. Would I use it even if I could? No, I don’t see a need, but it probably will be useful to many.
fortunately you don’t get decide what’s best for everyone. you do you, not everyone else. don’t be a dick here.
What are you even saying, you want me to preface comments with “Opinion Article” ?
I’m saying you don’t get to dictate what people use. you can share your opinion, but you don’t have to be an ass.
Womp womp, I guess, you just have to live with the fact that my comments exist.
That’s kinda on the list of things that aren’t my problem.
I hate to be that blunt, but seriously. It’s 2024. If you want fairness, you’re making it yourself. We’re in the cyberpunk dystopia. Learn Linux or, send Microsoft a few disapproving letters and hope.
If Windows is a part of your job, at least write off any expense on your taxes so you don’t pay for the pain.
Is it right? No. Everyone should have fair and equal software that is as useful as my tinkering makes mine, but life ain’t fair.
The feature that allows manufacturers to push software onto clean installs has existed since Windows 8. If you’re advertising for Windows 10, you might want to try again.
According to the article, this particular issue is only on Windows 11. Sure, they COULD push to other OS, but they’re currently pushing it only on Windows 11. One temporary workaround for this particular problem is to not use Windows 11.
As of last year, they were doing it with Windows 10. Either they stopped pushing it for Windows 10, or the article just doesn’t bother listing the older Windows version.
If you are a new user of a ROG, ROG Strix, TUF Gaming or Prime motherboard and using Windows 10 (Creators Update/ 1903 or later) or Windows 11, you will see a pop-up dialog that invites you to install Armoury Crate during the initial boot of your PC. To install, simply click ‘OK’ and the software will be automatically downloaded and installed.
There’s plenty of reasons to hate Windows 11, but this Christmas banner debacle isn’t one of them unless you’re also willing to concede that Windows 8, 8.1, and 10 are also all garbage for including the same mechanism which allows vendors to provide run-on-boot executables that bypass clean reinstalls.
I got it this year on Windows 10, I only realized it was ASUS because it also changed the RGB theme of my ROG Keyboard. Was annoying and confusing but I didn’t assume malware, just stupidity.
I’d love to know if this was just some guy who went ‘let’s ship it to all our customers!’ or if this was a C-level 300 hours of meetings type of thing which concluded that spreading christmas
malwarecheer was the right move.this was downloaded and ‘installed’ by asus armory crate, which came from malware baked right into the bios of new and ‘newish’ asus motherboards (how to disable)
Remember when Lenovo did this?
Who green lit this? I really hope that person gets fired immediately.
The lack of any visual link to ASUS isn’t even the biggest problem for me; it’s that ASUS rolls out a program that (presumably) puts itself in autostart by default and just pops up without prompt at all.
Edit: There’s a fucking setting in the BIOS to auto-install ASUS bullshit software? And it’s enabled by default… jesus fucking christ
Stop buying ASUS junk imo
I have a while ago…
Curious, what do you run? Gigabyte is still meh, ASRock I’ve heard is questionable, MSI is blacklisted garbage for me after a failed bios update and failed flashback restore…
I’ve only heard good things about Aorus (which is basically Gigabyte), though
I helped a friend spec and build their first machine and they got an Aorus (that’s so weird to spell) board but it’s literally just branding. The board is fine but has nothing fancy, and it’s not crazy expensive but it’s sure not cheap either. We have flashed new bios on it twice and the instructions are well over 15 years old and very wrong. It’s a word document and like 4 steps, and they can’t even be bothered to do that much? What set are they leaving on autopilot? (oh, owners, update your bios as there is a recent exploit in the bios due to lack of ssl/tls… as in, there is none when checking for updates which can lead to you installing a malicious bios…)
Just… questionable.
Most computers firmware can store a Windows executable. Microsoft pushed for an addition to the ACPI tables called WPBT. That stores a Windows exectuable in the firmware. It is of course totally used for the intended purpose…
I’m always dismayed but not surprised by how many people don’t know about Windows Platform Binary Table, which has existed since Windows 8. It’s not exactly the type of feature that Microsoft or the board vendors would want to publicize, seeing as it gives them persistent rootkit capabilities on the same level as UEFI rootkits.
Most normal people’s model of Windows security is “if something goes wrong then I wipe the disk and reinstall Windows,” and WPBT completely breaks that model, and has been doing so for 12 years.
Thankfully there are ways to disable it:
There has been for years now. Disabling it is part of my first-time setup for a new board.
My ASUS X470 board doesn’t have it, though; guess it’s a bit too old for that
You just cant make this shit up. Truly is year of the linux desktop.
They say that every year
And every year it is.
There must have been at least one crappy one though, statistically speaking
I don’t use Linux much, and I still agree. If the market share for Linux continues to rise every year, then it’s absolutely true.
I feel like there would be no “Year of the Linux Desktop”, but rather the year of “Oh wow whendid we hit 20% already?” A death of a thousand cuts is more plausible.
