“Let’s finish setting up your device”

Crossed out screen relating to finishing setting up Windows

If you have a Windows 10 or 11 computer then this unwanted interruption has probably hassled you several times in recent months

Microsoft’s screen that sometimes pops up with the exhortation “let’s finish setting up your device” is un-necessary and somewhat misleading.

Maybe I am naive for thinking that no company with whom we deal should mainpulate us for their own ends. Maybe Microsoft’s bullying, or Amazon’s endless attempts to pull us down into the rabbit hole of an unwanted Prime subscription, are no worse than supermarkets placing sweets near the checkout.

Or maybe it’s connected to my growing feeling that we are losing control over our computers and what we do with them.

Wha’evva. But what brought this on this morning? Answer: the very opening statement on the screenshot in Figure 1.

“Let’s finish setting up your device”. There can be no doubt whatsoever that we are meant to think that our “device” is, somehow, not completely installed or finished or “working properly”.

Windows screen - Let's finish setting up your device
Figure 1. “Let’s finish setting up your device” (the Windows 10 version). You can banish this screen for good (hopefully).

What Microsoft wants includes:

We should subscribe to Microsoft 365 (ie “Microsoft Office”). Clearly, Microsoft is implying that our “Windows” is not complete until we sign up for a subscription to something that has nothing to do with the functionality of Windows. They don’t even bother to filter this message out for users who already have such a subscription.

We should start using “OneDrive”. This is Microsoft’s cloud data service. They are trying very hard to get us all to save our data (documents, images, and so forth) on their servers rather than keeping our data private on our own computers. They are also trying hard to convince us that OneDrive is a “backup solution”, but that is an argument for another day.

We should start using Microsft Edge instead of our preferred internet browser.

And why does this bother me?

Two reasons:

  1. I hate the way the large tech companies bully and manipulate us.
  2. Several of my IT support clients have phoned me to ask what it’s all about and what, if anything, they have to do.

Point #1 is my own problem.

The answer to point #2 is “nothing”. You do not have to do anything to “finish setting up your device”.

And just to rub in my point about manipulation, notice that there is no option we can take that says “please go away and stop hassling me with this screen”. Instead we can only either “continue” or “choose” to be reminded again in 3 days.

Well, now that I’ve got that off my chest, here’s what you do to get rid of the problem:

  • Click on the Start button
  • Search for “Notifications and Actions”
  • In Windows 11, scroll down to “Additional settings” and uncheck the option that starts “Suggest ways to get the most…”
  • In Windows 10, look under the “Notifications” heading.  Just uncheck the option that begins “Suggest ways I can finish setting up…”

Windows 11 - tick box to banish screen
Windows 10 - tick box to banish screen

No doubt Mr Microsoft would disingenuously dismiss my rantings. He might point out that it’s easy to carry out these steps to stop the screen from appearing.

To which I would respond “you know as well as I do that you are trying to manipulate the very people who are least likely to know how to, or least likely to look for the means to, turn this off.”


Screenshots from Windows 10 and Windows 11