Pre-installed Windows 10 apps begging for ratings is wrong

I don’t use the Windows Calculator very often, but occasionally I need to work something out and so fire it up. Today, upon opening the calculator, I was presented with a message asking me to rate the app in the Windows Store. If I was enjoying it. Which of course I wasn’t. It is a calculator after all, and the only time I’ve ever enjoyed using one of those was as a teenager when I typed in "5318008" and turned it upside down. Even the enjoyment of doing that was very short lived.

Now, the Windows 10 calculator begging for user ratings in the Windows Store isn’t a new phenomenon. A thread on Reddit discussed this some months ago, but this is the first time I’ve experienced it for myself, and obviously three months after it was first flagged as a nuisance, it’s still going on. Seriously who at Microsoft thought this was a good idea?

Yes, dismissing the message takes less than a second, but you have to actively dismiss it before you can use the calculator.

And why does that request even appear on a pre-installed app?

And, more importantly, on a calculator of all things?

App ratings exist, for the most part, to help curious users decide whether or not to install an app. The Windows Calculator is already installed and if you’ve uninstalled it and decide you want it back, then you already know, for the most part, what you’re getting.

Reviews for a pre-installed calculator aren’t necessary, and begging for them in the app itself even less so. If it was a third-party app that would be acceptable -- if rather crappy -- but this is a default app from Microsoft. You get it whether you want it or not.

If the software giant is thinking of making changes to the app it should ask Windows Insiders for feedback -- that’s what they are there for, after all -- but it isn’t. It’s just asking for anyone, and everyone, to rate it.

Whatever next? Will Microsoft ask us to rate its Store app before it will allow access to it?

Maybe in the future we can be asked to rate Blue Screens of Death, that would be fun.

What’s your view? Is it acceptable for Microsoft to ask people to rate default pre-installed apps in this manner?

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