Windows 11 Start menu ads are now rolling out to everyone

If I see your company or app advertised on windows 11, you can be sure I will be actively avoiding said company/ App. Even if I need the services advertised, I will be looking for an alternative just because.

How did the default attitude toward the user get so hostile? The amount of toggles you need to set just to have a smooth experience with minimal tracking is insane. The people in here defending it by the fact it can be disabled are missing the point: we shouldn't have to deal with it in the first place.

Didn't I pay for the OS?

You know, I get if they want to do this to Home editions, but why in the world would they do this to all editions? At the very least, this should never apply to domain-joined computers.

I installed Linux Mint a few days ago. It's been great so far.

I’m getting extremely close to making a tiny partition for windows (so I can play gamepass) and then using a Linux distro for my day to day. Are there still issues with Nvidia drivers on Linux? Its been a long time since I’ve run Linux.

Win11: less functionality, more ads

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

How hard is it to make a decent OS Microsoft? Haven't you got enough of our money already?

Oh look another reason why I’ll be switching to Linux next time I have to upgrade my pc. Fml I’m going to have to learn what a package manager is ew

Thank god I use linux

Windows sucks. I wish I could put Linux on my work computer.

How long until Mom gets malware from them?

"All you have to do is set some flags in GPO policy editor and relogin the first time and every time there's an update. Easy"

• some Windows fanboi probably

And the wind screams Linux

Everyone? This shit will be on my work computer???????

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

Think I will try Linux for real now

That's disgusting.

Why does the OS have to recommend you apps?

Fucking unhinged idiocracy. Capitalism is the cancer of humanity

For those who want to stay on windows and avoid this trash:

https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu

An open source start menu replacement. Been using it for 6 months seamlessly and it’s great

"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.

Good thing I switched to Linux 10 years ago. No regrets.

I'm not even on Windows 11, lol. Dodging so many bullets from that shithole OS.

The only things preventing me from going full on Linux is driver support/compatibility, full gaming (we're talking, things from GOG more than Steam) and using the same utilities that run better on Windows.

I'm just here waiting for my wife to finally snap and ask about getting Linux on her gaming PC. I've been using it for 20 years now. The complaints are becoming more and more numerous these days, it's only a matter of time.

The spice shit must flow

They can at least be disabled but it's always something with MS these days.

I'm calling it now.

Windows 11 will be the new Windows 8. Or NT. Or millennium.

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?

Realistically, how many years do you think Microsoft will support Windows 10? I dread having to switch to 11 some day, at the rate they're going.

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

Me, on my Ubuntu machine: 🧐🤔😂😂😂😂😂😂

They aren't even labeled as ads/paid promotion, so I wonder if this even got legal's input. Something the FTC probably might be interested in.

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

Microsoft only started testing these ads two weeks ago, so it’s surprising to see this “feature” progress from the Beta Channel to release in such a short period of time.

Is it surprising, though? When earning more money is involved?

This is the best summary I could come up with:

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.

“The Recommended section of the Start menu will show some Microsoft Store apps,” says Microsoft in the update notes of its latest public Windows 11 release.

Microsoft only started testing these ads two weeks ago, so it’s surprising to see this “feature” progress from the Beta Channel to release in such a short period of time.

At the time of initial testing I mentioned Microsoft “could decide to ditch these ads” if there was enough feedback that suggested they weren’t popular, but two weeks of feedback certainly isn’t long enough to determine that.

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.

The original article contains 303 words, the summary contains 200 words. Saved 34%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

The direction Windows 11 is taking is terrible but i've tried on multiple occasions (even this morning!) to game and consume my content on Ubuntu or Fedora and i run into so much trouble, that ill have to stick with Windows 11. I have been using Ubuntu at work for the last 10 years though as web development is great on it.

Issues i have:

• Lutris not finding GoG games
• Heroic working, but not being able to sync savegames for GoG
• Having installed GoG with Bottles and then the game itself works, but my framerate wasn't that great
• Nvidia driver getting borked after kernel update, need to switch to old kernel, uninstall, switch to new kernel, reinstall
• Mangohud flatpak not working together with Goverlay repo version
• Need alternative for Synology cloud sync. Maybe Syncthing or rsync with SMB
• And i need alternatives for fps limiting, undervolting and cpu undervolting. Haven't put enough time into it yet though
• I like the mouse acceleration on Windows and in KDE both flat and adaptive feel pretty flat. Probably can be tweaked with xinput or something, but you can't configure the acceleration amount by default

Maybe one day, but for now Windows is probably just the better choice for me and gaming (on a laptop). At least in Windows 11 they now allow you to not group the taskbar by default..

I'm still ok with windows 10 and by the time it's no longer supported, proton should be mature enough for me to make the jump with no regrets.

Have fun with em kids

I finally activated windows last week through the cmd... Didn't pay a cent

I really, really wish Linux worked better on my gaming laptop. I used it for many years on desktop as my only OS (hopped many distros and ended back on mint) but on laptops I just can't find a distro without considerable issues. Whether it be display scaling problems, performance, not being able to switch my video card mode, etc...

Note that you can turn the ads off quickly and easily. I agree that there's someone off-putting about an operating system with built-in ads, but a tech-savvy person will see them once and then never again. (A person who isn't tech-savvy probably won't care.)

I am just waiting for a malware developer or state actor to use this as a way to infect computers with 0-days.

This is a disaster. Why anybody would decide to use Windows for any serious workloads is unfathomable to me.

Office products are mostly cross-platform (outlook, word, excel).

If I could get easy to access, judgement free tech support for Linux then I'd be fine (outside of walled gardens like Discord). I just don't know how to solve my problems in Linux especially considering there are so many additional variables and often you either don't get answers, are asking in the wrong place, or are asking in the wrong way. A lot of the time you just get scorn for not being born a Linux power user.

I do feel like I have basically no choice but to switch once W10 runs its course. I've got a dual boot of Fedora 40 KDE that I'm toying with.

Do Win 10 LTSC users still get shoveled this shit? I'm asking for a friend.

Finally! Seemed unfair that only a select few were getting these initially.

Anyone remember when OS updates were actually something we looked forward to?

Linux.

I just can't stand the lack of hibernation or hybrid suspend on laptops with Linux. Otherwise I'd much rather have a Linux distro on my nice laptop and windows in a VM if at all.

Do I even have to say it?

Yes I do

GNU LINUX

I got my first notification on my Win10 Pro box today about support ending too

Good thing Ubuntu 24.04 LTS comes out tomorrow. I’ll be doing a reinstall on my machine and sticking with it until the next LTS release in two years.

We need to hunt down whoever these ads are working on.

Hopefully somebody will figure out how to murder the "feature."

I'm on 10 still. (And if I wasn't a gamer and sucker for games that don't work on Linux - I would be on Arch)

Easy peasy fix for that :
Use AdBlock filter that run on root of OS/Host like hblock, hagezi, or 1Host

Let me see if I can use windows without opening the start menu now

Wow, this is such an amazing feature! Exactly the thing that was missing from Windows! But I can't see it on my computer, what am I doing wrong??

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

And they called Google scroogle😆

Do apps like classicshell still work?

The cope iv heard from friends that this is okay behavior

Source

What's the best Linux distro for just running steam on startup? Chimera?

laughs with Atlas OS

Enterprise editions exist, just saying...

Fundamental error - as usual with Windows news.

These 'Start Menu Ads' aren't rolling out to everyone, I have zero 'Start Menu Ads'. In fact, I have Zero Ads in my operating system.

Why must Windows news always assume that everyone runs Windows? Isn't this the main bug with all operating systems?

to everyone? I use linux, i didn't know MS had that level of influence.