Microsoft’s server-side quiet update, there are many users who have received Bing.com’s push notification, recommending that users use Microsoft’s Bing search and Bing Chat.
Based on what is known, this pop-up will mainly appear on the desktops of Win11 and Win10 users who have set Google or other search engines as their preferred search engine for Chrome, and users will be reminded of this regardless of what they are doing at the moment, even if they are in full-screen gaming.
This pop-up window is mainly to promote Microsoft Rewards reward points and Bing Chat, it will appear in a variety of Windows 11 settings, such as notification and focus assist function, and will even appear suddenly when the user is playing the game (In fact, full-screen games will be blocked by default all the notifications in the system, so this is quite interesting).
From the picture we can see, “When you search you can earn Microsoft Rewards points rewards. Experience the new Bing, your AI-powered search engine. Install Bing services to improve your search experience.”
After exploring deeper, some users discovered that the pop-up is triggered by the C:\Windows\Temp\MUBSTemp\BGAUpsell.exe file, which happens to be associated with Microsoft Bing Service 2.0, which is designed to enhance Bing’s security on Windows 11 and 10. With this update, Microsoft is transitioning Bing from the less secure SHA-1 algorithm to the more secure SHA-2 algorithm.
As of now, the BGAUpsell.exe file is a legitimate system file in Windows 11 that represents Microsoft-related notifications and can provide various pop-ups to users by communicating with the Microsoft API.
Users have discovered that Microsoft has added a property called “IsEdgeUsedInLast48Hours” to the BGAUpsell.exe file to check when a user last used Microsoft Edge. If Edge has not been used in the last 48 hours, the pop-up may be triggered.
In addition, it seems that Microsoft can not only detect when a user has used Microsoft Edge, but also whether the user is using Google or other search engines in Chrome, and if this is detected, a pop-up alert will also appear.
In fact, Microsoft Windows 11 is often criticized by users for these annoying pop-ups, but it seems that Microsoft is not going to stop.
It’s also worth noting that Microsoft Edge last week flagged the ChromeSetup installer as a harmful program and advised users to continue using Edge.
