It is almost unreal that after all these years, on the verge of 2022, Microsoft, with its nearly unlimited material resources, keeps its Windows 10 Edge browser stealing file associations against the user’s explicit and repeatedly assumed options, regarding default apps.

I am so annoyed to have to change my PDF viewer option to my favorite software for the task, nearly every single day, that I had to write it out. For me, Microsoft Edge is “irritation software”, a non-tool, an app that serves no other true purpose than to upload its users’ data to the Microsoft cloud. There is nothing in the Edge software that users can not find in alternatives, some genuinely transparent, obeying, and open source, namely in Mozilla’s Firefox, including the support for vertical tabs which – for me – is a must, and is lacking in most Web browsers. It is just horrible.

Some users are to blame. For the convenience of not having to redo their preferences, they stick and comply to Edge’s clepto dictatorship.

This is one of several annoyances in Windows 10, probably the most frequent, but NOT the most time-consuming one. The problem that has burned me the most time is the “no Internet connection available” FALSE connectivity information.

This problem can arise in a multitude of situations, but the odds of it happening are higher in systems with more than one NIC (Network Interface Card) and/or when users run their own DNS server. In these scenarios, the ridiculous service “Network Location Awareness” (NLA) might fail to properly process what is set in Windows’ registry at

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NlaSvc\Parameters\Internet

There, Microsoft sets some callback URLs, which are regularly contacted (keys “ActiveDnsProbeContent”, “ActiveDnsProbeContentV6”), resolved via specific DNS hosts (keys “ActiveDnsProbeHost”, “ActiveDnsProbeHostV6”), and expected to regularly answer certain data (set in keys “ActiveWebProbeContent” and “ActiveWebProbeContentV6”).
This is a miserable, absurdly bad design option, disconnected from other network configurations.

If a NIC is set to a “private” network, that uses its own custom DNS resolver – as in my case – the NLA service might consider that the entire system is without Internet connection, even if other NICs do have access. Or, at least, that is what is always happening with me. It is oh so frustrating.

To aggravate the ridiculousness, if one searches for solutions, the top results tend to be Microsoft’s own “answers” sites, which answer absolutely nothing. Those Microsoft forums consist of threads that read as nightmares. People respond with mechanically scripted texts that go around most problems’ essence.
Search engines are at blame here too, for ranking such garbage sites so high.

Having to systematically fix the same problems, again and again, is an offense to productivity. It simply should not happen.
For users to think this is a justifiable behavior from a company the size of Microsoft to let these situations go on, for 10+ years now, sets an incredible low, extremely negative standard, to everyone else. “Oh time and data are so precious, but let us push people to waste them, just because we can and it is nice to milk their corresponding data”.

Shame on you Microsoft. It should not be as it is. You are doing many things wrong.