"an ill-advised redesign"
It's a nice afternoon for a rant, so I'll take the opportunity to sound off about the abomination that Micros~1 have made of the solitaire patience games in Windows 10.
Today it starts with a hideous banner announcing "National Solitaire Day" and encouraging me to play as many games as I can. "Get Double XP EVERYWHERE!", it screams (capitalization sic). I thought Windows XP was obsolete. And why would I want it doubled? "Visit Facebook to see how close we are to beating the record!!" - an invitation I find easy to resist.
I always elect for random deals, because that's how card games are supposed to work, Micros~1. But it insists on progressing me through "levels". So the random deals at Level 31 are harder than those at Level 1, are they? How do you know, if they're random?
Worst of all, of course, are the ads. Micros~1 seem to have worked out my age by spying on me, or maybe they just conclude that a taste for solitaire patience is a symptom of senility. So I'm sent ads for funeral services and teasers about things for "seniors". They think I'm susceptible to local enthusiasms: "People in St Ives are going mad for this smartwatch | funeral service | life insurance". I assume this is a lie. And there's a bizarre category that shows a picture of some long-forgotten celebrity with a link that says "You'll never guess what X looks like now!". True enough, but why should I care?
It would be bad enough if they just showed the kind of ads you see on TV or in print, but the solitaire patience ads have a distinctive intimate wheedling tone that I find especially obnoxious. I'll certainly never buy any of the stuff they're promoting, and as for the funeral services, I'd sooner be dead.