Some people are having trouble getting into their Windows desktops because of an unskippable ad for Microsoft 365, Microsoft's suite of productivity and collaboration software. A Reddit user posted a photo of their Windows 10 PC displaying a full-screen Microsoft 365 Home trial ad during the out-of-box experience (OOBE).
The netizen said in the post: "Windows 10 prevents me from booting to the desktop because I need to be forced to accept their free trial, and then pay $109 per month (I later canceled the trial of this service, but Microsoft's approach What kind of?)."
The user sees two options for things. "Try it for free" and "No thanks". Oddly, if the user clicks "No Thanks," they're still redirected to a payment confirmation page, and Penguin has no choice but to click "Start Trial, Buy Later."
As noted by BleepingComputer, other users have also reported seeing a differently styled variation of the ad, again with "Next" and "No Thanks" buttons, which still takes them to the payment page regardless of what they click.
With no obvious way to skip the ad, the only thing users can do is enter their card details and cancel the subscription through their Microsoft account. If they don't cancel, they'll be billed $109 per month.
As some Redditors have pointed out, given that the full-screen Windows 11 ad we reported yesterday offered a functioning skip button, it's possible the interface was designed erroneously.
For now, if you want to avoid seeing this trial screen, you can try disconnecting from the Internet when going through OOBE.
