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.
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.
I’m not sure these ads are even paid for by the developers of the apps that show up. It looks like this is an ad for the Microsoft Store in general, as Microsoft gets a percentage of any sales.
I have the same policy for pop up ads.
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.
You shouldn’t. I haven’t. Microsoft is a plague and a choice.
You’re not wrong, but there’s a larger issue here: the fact that there’s an alternative does not make what Microsoft is doing okay. This shit ought to be prohibited by consumer protection law.
It got here because it’s super profitable, and that’s all the C-suite cares about, and they’re the ones calling the shots at the end of the day.
I also think that engineering ethics has, in general, been strongly de-emphasized, and true holistic ownership of technical products is now usually held by business and finance types instead of engineers, with all the negative consequences that that entails.
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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.
Money
Seems short sighted to annoy the people who pay you the most money already.
What are they going to switch to?
Most orgs will just put up with it because of inertia: existing software that has to work, employee’s having to learn new skills, “sysadmins” who only know Microsoft, etc.
… “sysadmins” who only know Microsoft, …
HEY
Didn’t I pay for the OS?
Sure, we’ve had first payment…
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Where did you come up with that figure? I have two PCs and they have two separate licenses. One is custom built and the other was prebuilt.
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So you guessed? You don’t have any kind of way of confirming that figure? I see 37% from some studies. Microsoft itself has monetary estimates but no percentages of stolen software.
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Even if that’s true, custome pcs are a tiny fraction of client computing, oem desktops and especially laptops completely own client computing, most people only ever get a laptop
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I don’t understand then, if you know that they are relatively rare, then why do they matter to the discussion at hand?
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I paid for 10.
Which is why I never enabled TPM on my motherboard. I didn’t pay for 11. I do not want 11.
I paid for 7 and upgraded it to 10. I may go to 12 later on (Windows alternates between solid and awful, so 12 may be fine) but it’s also quite likely I’ll wind up moving to a Linux distro as my primary and keeping Win10 as a fallback. No way in hell am I touching 11.
I didn’t pay for the OS.
Win11: less functionality, more ads
And what’s with the weasel words like “recommended”? Just call them “sponsored” or “ads”, like they really are.
Windows 11 (and how much I like my experience with the Steam deck, if I’m being honest) has me seriously reconsidering switching to Linux for my gaming desktop
I’ve only been playing games on Linux for the past year and it’s been a pretty smooth experience. Go for it!
I’m considering it even more seriously right now. I had my eyes set on Fedora, but apparently I shouldn’t, because they are ditching official support for X11, and I need it because I have an Nvidia GPU ? I was also looking at pop OS, but I also saw people recommending against Ubuntu on Lemmy, I don’t remember why though. Do you have a recommendation ?
Me, on my Ubuntu machine: 🧐🤔😂😂😂😂😂😂
yeah you get ads in the terminal instead
It’s not an ad. Nobody is being paid to put that there. It’s a promotion.
they’re advertising their paid product, don’t really see a difference semantically
It is very different.
If by very different you mean exactly the same
Your comment is hilarious because Ubuntu placed ads for Amazon in the equivalent of start menu way before Microsoft even had that idea. Ubuntu now displays ads for Ubuntu Pro (or Premium, whatever the name is) in the terminal. Ubuntu is the Windows wannabe of the Linux world.
Thankfully I stay away from the terminal whenever possible and I started using this thing after the ads from Amazon were no longer a thing xd
In other words, you hide your head in the sand, like many Windows users.
Lol, or we just use the computer and don’t cry about stupid bullshit
Except that it’s not stupid bullshit. It’s like saying “just suck it up and accept the fact that your TV will serve you ads and track you.”
Yup and that’s exactly what people do lol.
Unfortunately, yes.
I finally activated windows last week through the cmd… Didn’t pay a cent
How?
I won’t post a specific website but if you search it you’ll find tons of guides on how to do it.
Why won’t you post it?
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Why does the OS have to recommend you apps?
Just in case you didn’t have enough apps installed from the factory.
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.)
My money is on them being re-enabled after every update.
This setting exists on 10 and I’ve never had it re-enable itself.
Initially Windows 10 used to do this, but that was fixed a long ass time ago. Like before 11 existed a long ass time ago.
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…
If you’re not ready to switch, most of the issues and anti consumer shit with Windows can be managed through a combination of Group Policy, Registry, various settings and configurations menus, and a wee bit of PowerShell.
I used to post comments like this on Reddit. I’m an expert in PowerShell, group policy, and Windows enterprise management in general. Point being I know how to do all that stuff. Over 99% of Windows users do not. But I completely decrapified my Win10 install and was mostly happy with it.
When it was time to go to Win11 I realized all this effort is just Stockholm Syndrome. I shouldn’t have to protect myself from the maker of my OS. And it’s clearly getting worse so why put in the continual effort?
Moved to Tumbleweed a month ago on my main home PC. Microsoft is just my day job again, and I feel so much relief not having to be on guard for whatever shady shit they pull next.
Edit: to be clear I’m not critical of your post. It’s nice to educate those that want to protect themselves. I’ve just come to realize there’s a better way for me.
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?
