this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2024

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Windows 11 Start menu ads are now rolling out to everyone (www.theverge.com)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

425 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Microsoft is starting to enable ads inside the Start menu on Windows 11 for all users. After testing these briefly with Windows Insiders earlier this month, Microsoft has started to distribute update KB5036980 to Windows 11 users this week, which includes “recommendations” for apps from the Microsoft Store in the Start menu.

Luckily you can disable these ads, or “recommendations” as Microsoft calls them. If you’ve installed the latest KB5036980 update then head into Settings > Personalization > Start and turn off the toggle for “Show recommendations for tips, app promotions, and more.” While KB5036980 is optional right now, Microsoft will push this to all Windows 11 machines in the coming weeks.

Microsoft’s move to enable ads in the Windows 11 Start menu follows similar promotional spots in the Windows 10 lock screen and Start menu. Microsoft also started testing ads inside the File Explorer of Windows 11 last year before disabling the experiment and saying the test was “not intended to be published externally.” Hopefully that experiment remains very much an experiment.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

I installed PopOS this week. Let's see if my experiment works better than this experiment from Microsoft.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Is there a way to GPO this 'feature' off? Worried about some of our users getting confused.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Possibly, but these will change on the regular

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (1 children)

turn off the toggle for “Show recommendations for tips, app promotions, and more.”

I turn this off anyway, as in Windows 10 it always kept pushing 3rd party apps. Is this ad any different to the Windows 10 "Suggested App" that was in the start menu for it?

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[–] [email protected] 59 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Win11: less functionality, more ads

And what's with the weasel words like "recommended"? Just call them "sponsored" or "ads", like they really are.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Are they sponsored? I was under the impression they were usually just Microsoft advertising their own shitty stuff? Ads, sure. But for it to be sponsored, someone else has to pay for them

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The screenshot shows 1password, which to my knowledge is not affiliated to Microsoft, so I think yes, they are sponsored

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Do apps like classicshell still work?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I heard they disable update if you have it (if it true that's pretty scummy probably the scummiest of the scum)

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Yet another bullet dodged since my move to Linux, thank fuck. Fuck you cunts at Micro$hit.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

I like Linux, but I just use too many apps and programs that are only available for Windows. It's a no-go for me and, I suspect, many others.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago

Lol. Another reason to be glad I don’t use Windows as my main OS.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

"Tips and recommendations".

For years I had that turned on in Windoof 10 as it sounded like: "we see you're regularly doing X or having problem Y. Here is a way how to make X simpler and a solution for Y."

Instead it was nothing like that. It was literally nothing at all. Probably they just tried to shove some ads down my throat, which I luckily didn't see.

But it has become clear enough: it's not about helping users with useful tips and recommendations. It's about luring them into buying some stuff.

They can find new clever euphemisms, like EA did with their "surprise mechanics". But it is what it is: ads, digital noise, a waste of resources and probably one of the last incentives I needed to fully switch to a good Linux distro.

I used Windoof just for gaming anyway. And as I'm already working professionally with Linux, it will hardly be a miss.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

Corporate America has gone from providing value to extracting it...

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