Does Microsoft’s Self-Signed BGAupsell.exe Qualify As Malware?

It’s Certainly At Least As Annoying As The Old <BLINK> Tag

Microsoft continues it’s campaign to push Edge on users, and as is tradition they have put their foot in their mouth again.  This time, they bypassed Window’s notification system completely and are running an executable called BGAupsell.exe to annoy you.  The file gets dumped in c:\windows\temp\mubstemp and is digitally signed by Microsoft, not exactly the most secure practice for distributing a pop up asking you to switch to Edge.

Ars Technica have seen a few examples, and The Verge has a shot of it appearing overtop of a full screen game.  This will certainly not endear Microsoft nor it’s browser with someone wrapped up in a frantic game.  Microsoft has decided to pause the rollout of BGAupsell.exe to more users, apparently somewhat surprised by the overwhelmingly negative feedback they received.  This surprise should not be unexpected, previous pop ups and Bing search hijacking when you are looking to download a different browser have all been tried before and were all detested, yet they keep trying.