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.
The cope iv heard from friends that this is okay behavior
Didn’t I pay for the OS?
Sure, we’ve had first payment…
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.
You pay for the privilege of getting ads beamed directly to your desktop
I didn’t pay for the OS.
Did anyone pay for 11?
Microsoft has been giving it free left and right.
I did. I was naive and had just built a gaming pc. 10 was no longer for sale
Everyone paid for a windows os, but they’ve been forcing upgrades for what I assume are completely unrelated reasons
The reason being that uninformed users didn’t update at all and then blamed Microsoft.
I think it’s safe to say that over 99% of custom built pc doesn’t run on proper windows license
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.
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
No you are just renting to see more ads.
Let me see if I can use windows without opening the start menu now
The instructions to disable this are right fucking there in the article, and the sections OP copied to the description here.
And for completeness: Settings > Personalization > Start and turn off the toggle for “Show recommendations for tips, app promotions, and more.”
Very helpful, thanks. Had the update this morning and there it was. It’s off now.
Since I’ve adopted PowerToys -> PowerToys Run and set a shortcut to open it with “Super (windows key) + Space” I don’t know what a start menu is.
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.
I switched to Pop OS a year ago and the Nvidia drivers are fine. There are definitely some things that are a pain in the ass. My fingerprint scanner won’t work even though it is in the list of ones that work in fprintd and I don’t feel like going through the process of submitting a ticket and troubleshoot it. Getting some games to run properly in WINE can also be a pain. Overall though, I’m fine with it.
But a tiny partition will not do for Windows.
Not really. With the super easy, friendly distros it basically just goes.
I switched to Linux Mint Cinnamon a while ago expecting to just fool around a bit but mostly boot back into windows to do stuff. I’ve now found that the ONLY thing I need to go back to windows for is when I’m forced by dumb policies to use an MSOffice product, which fortunately doesn’t happen to often (and no, LibreOffice is absolutely not a sub for MS Office. The spreadsheet app is worse than google docs, and I’d rather work in typst than have to deal with the libreoffice writer – especially as soon as I need to display an equation/figure/table of contents. Of course, I’d rather work in typst than deal with MSWord too…)
That said, I don’t really play games anymore. Games may still require frequent windows visits. But… I’ve been looking forward to a complete edition of horizon forbidden west and all accounts say it’s linux compatibility is near perfect, so maybe things aren’t so bad these days on the gaming front.
I made it through two whole top level comments before getting to a switch to Linux comment.
It was my turn this week!
Indeed it’s so weird the practically only alternative to Windows comes up when discussing Windows issues.
Perhaps BSD or ReactOS should be mentioned more. Or people told to buy a whole new Mac and throw their computer away.
So you’re saying we should do better?
I’ve used both Linux Mint and Manjaro, and my Nvidia card has done fine in both. I switched to Mint from Windows because it was easier and faster to set up under Mint (Windows was missing a bunch of drivers and the OEM’s site didn’t have updated ones). The only configuration I had to do was select the proprietary driver (and Mint has a nice little GUI for that). If you’re on the fence, I highly recommend trying Mint.
Seconded. Mint is the best distro for anyone who wants to get started with Linux with the least amount of hassle. Installation is a breeze and it just works.
Thirded. I set Mint as the default boot, then have a copy of windows available as an alternative OS option when required.
I installed Mint last night as a dual-boot and had a few issues, the boot loader would not load into Windows Boot Manager and when I manually selected Windows Boot Manager in UEFI Windows booted but hard locked until it reindexed the drive I partitioned for Linux.
The Mint OS works fine, to be clear. My issue with the dual boot is mostly getting Windows to play nice.
Dual boot is definitely more tricky to get going. I just set up a Windows partition again to play a game that uses Easy Anti Cheat, and it took some time to have everything working happily.
Well I changed my nvidia settings from on demand to a lower value and rebooted Mint a few weeks ago. Then there was no display at all and several hours/days of searching led me to reinstall Linux again and I did not have good backups. There was probably an answer there, but my frustration with Linux is real!!! I still refuse to use anything else and flop between manjaro and mint. I think having proper system backups and a live USB ready to go is helpful…I’m much more defensive running Linux because I keep getting shitty surprises, but I still feel better about it over using windows.
I have not tried it, but I’ve heard good things about bazzite as a good steam deck clone that has a strong community committed to Nvidia support.
Worth looking into at least!
Bazzite is a neat concept, and I run it too. Still haven’t gotten VR to work properly, though (Quest 2)
Oh it’s my time to shine! I just installed bazzite onto my ROG Ally yesterday.
It is pretty fantastic so far. Not perfect but very good.
Also, it doubles as a pretty OK developer machine because it comes with buildutils, unlike the steam deck. I was able to get my Nix dotfiles set up on it and do a little Rust work to try it out.
steam deck clone
No way Jose. If anything their approach is inspired by Fedora Atomic, which is the cornerstone of Bazzite.
Other than that, yes, a very very solid approach for daily usage for casual gamers.
Tried the same thing, but ended up running into issues with Linux constantly and needed to use Windows more than I wanted, so just ended up back on Windows 10. Once all the shit is disabled it’s perfectly fine. Linux is getting there, but still only really good for general web browsing/office suites (unless you wanna play around in the command line for ages).
It’s frustrating that the answer to any of the questions/issues I have are generally reams of commands and walls of text that I only partially understand. If I find answers at all now that all discourse is being sectioned in to walled gardens like Discord. 😬
Ah yeah, it’s hard to find good support for Linux. Lot’s of people with their heads in their asses, who will say “why are you bothering going through Windows settings to disable tracking when you can just use Linux!”, then proceed to tell you to enter a million different commands in the terminal to try and get basic functionality you had on Windows.
The sooner they start being more welcoming to new users, the sooner the market share will grow.
I did the same for the few game I can’t run. Nobara installed working drivers in 1 click. My GPU runs a bit more than it should on the desktop but the last driver update made a big difference.
Im planning on switching the Window install back to 10 since 11 is too shit.
I’ve had the rare issue with my 4070ti that probably wouldn’t have been a problem with AMD, but most things run great. Using endeavorOS
PopOS handles nvidia drivers perfectly.
I recently installed Nobara with Nvidia on my three year old alienware desktop because of Windows 11 turning to advertising shit. Nobara is finicky enough that I might jump over to PopOS. Lots of shearing and frame skips in video, let alone in gaming. I don’t have this issue on my other laptop with PopOS on it.
Sounds like you’re not using the proprietary binary blob.
Are you referring to the additional installs in the Nobara Welcome App?
I dunno what DM that is but if it’s gnome, in the about it will tell you what graphics card you’re using and what kernel extension
System Details Report
Report details
- Date generated: 2024-04-24 17:43:52
Hardware Information:
- Hardware Model: Alienware Alienware Aurora Ryzen Edition
- Memory: 64.0 GiB
- Processor: AMD Ryzen™ 9 5900 × 24
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX™ 3080
- Disk Capacity: (null)
Software Information:
- Firmware Version: 2.2.1
- OS Name: Nobara Linux 39 (GNOME Edition)
- OS Build: (null)
- OS Type: 64-bit
- GNOME Version: Not Available
- Windowing System: Wayland
- Kernel Version: Linux 6.8.5-201.fsync.fc39.x86_64
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!
2 weeks is most certainly enough time to read the listen in on the thousands of thousands of people saying fuck off Microsoft, stop with the fucking ads.
Nobody outside of those getting profit thinks this is a good idea…literally no one.
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.
Profits now are all that matter. The future is a problem for after dividends and bonuses get paid out.
But they could be paying the most money even more.
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
Nothing personal, lol, but I stand by my quotes.
I feel like sysadmins need to be comfortable in multiple environments. I also work with some really crappy ones who only know how to reboot a faulty system or crawl to Microsoft for support. No reviewing logs, no digging in at all, just “welp, a reboot didn’t fix it. Gonna submit a support ticket and make no further effort”.
There’s a lot to be said for a good generalist, but at some point, specialization takes you farther. I ended up with Windows server and Active Directory, as well as Exchange (lots of other stuff, too, but those are the main things). Apart from mass workstation management, or when a help desk person asks for a hand, I haven’t dealt with non-servers in a loooong time.
No reviewing logs, no digging in at all, just “welp, a reboot didn’t fix it. Gonna submit a support ticket and make no further effort”.
My last few experiences with Microsoft support (spread over many years) have been “If I can’t figure it out, Microsoft probably can’t, either.” For a smaller company, with a limited IT staff, having someone who is able to efficiently interface with vendor support without necessarily having all the answers themselves can be a useful thing. But I totally get what you’re saying.
how soon do you think ms gets hit with a lawsuit because a malicious ad infected BlackRock or Deloitte or some shit
If there’s anything that I’ve learned, it’s that lawsuits are more often than not, just a joke to the large companies.
Hell it’s often easier for them to just classify whatever fine they get slapped on the wrist with as a business expense, than to do the right thing, it seems.
Windows sucks. I wish I could put Linux on my work computer.
I brought an acer leptop a couple of years back and acer made it nearly impossible to install any other os then windows onto it
Because of Intel RST? I just had to deal with that but was able to get a dual boot of mint on my acer.
Let me preface that with I’m a bloody linux and every releated noob and it’s been like 5 years so my memory is a little fuzzy: I never figured out why Ubuntu didn’t run but it just didn’t, after i got mint working i realized that there are no drivers and a leptop with out touchpad/wifi isn’t why I needed it in the first place…
It was an aspite 3 a315-41g. I quickly googled to refresh my memory and I read something about that, I can’t recall if I tried it out though. I needed to changed a few settings so maybe I tried.
Ah, I have the aspire a315-56. Mint was pretty painless for me after the RST issue. I didn’t have to worry about wifi/bluetooth/touchpad drivers at all. Right out of the box its been smooth (for linux) for me.
Interesting what distro did you use?
Good thing I switched to Linux 10 years ago. No regrets.
Sudoer for about 18 now. Full on Year of the Linux Desktop for about 5 years now.
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’ll still be using Windows (no time for Linux), but really, why does the user have to do this for a pleasant experience? MS shouldn’t be hostile towards their users.
My money is on them being re-enabled after every update.
Ah, the ol’ “Please use Edge” update screen that pops up every few months.
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.
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.
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.
And the wind screams Linux
If only Linux wasn’t so frustrating to use for the average enduser. I’d never recommend it as a daily driver for 95% of people.
Windows is frustrating for average people, the thing is that they get used to ms bullshit because they think there are no other way.
That’s a fair criticism, but I wouldn’t recommend Windows as a daily driver to 95% of people either. If you like/care/know about computers, use Linux, otherwise I’d recommend MacOS over Windows (unless said person uses their computer for gaming, in which case Windows’ll give you the least hassle)
Really? MacOS? Why’s that? I’ve never had the pleasure of working with a Mac, but I’d be open to trying it.
Actually, I’m thinking about picking a previous gen MacBook for my wife, I just need some confirmation on how it handles The Sims and Minecraft… 😂
I am honestly guessing but as long there’s mac compatibility on those (older) games I’d expect them to run just fine. MacOS is probably my favorite OS from an overall coherency standpoint, power with the command line, aesthetics and usability. You’re just not going to find a lot of overlap between people who use linux and the traditional mac crowd (except when it comes to software development weirdly, which is where I sit), but it is criminally underdiscussed around here every time Windows enshittifies. (BTW, not a fanboy, running multiple Windows, Linux and MacOS systems at home)
Understanding Linux kernel is medium hard, but not frustrating. Using a DE is NOT frustrating if you understand what’s up with their core ideals. D-Bus, HOOKS, env variables… meh I can give you that. But 95% of users live in the web and/or office apps. And for that literally any flavor of Linux will do. My in laws would never in their lifetimes be able to distinguish Arch + KDE + SDDM + themes from Windows. I can bet my right testicle.
I’d argue that for the vast majority of users, a stable, modern Linux distro will meet their needs perfectly. Web browsing, watching YouTube, checking e-mail, looking at pictures of cats on the internet…
It’s special/professional use-cases that are still lackluster. Try doing professional level photo editing on Linux… It’s a nightmare. Integrating with corporate cloud solutions? Nah. Are these things doable? Absolutely. By the majority of users in that specific use-case? No.
But day-to-day, general use PC stuff? Yeah, absolutely. Even gaming is more accessible than ever. There’s exactly one game in my Steam library that doesn’t just work… To be clear, it doesn’t work at all, but that’s just because of my hardware setup. (Halo Infinite + Intel ARC + Linux = Game can’t even launch. Worked fine with an AMD card, but when I upgraded late last year it borked. Known problem with Vulkan, DX12, and ARC)
It really doesn’t. My girlfriend needed to enable the Japanese keyboard on Kubuntu. That required half an hour of searching documentation and forum posts about how to install/enable FCITX5, then another hour debugging to find out it doesn’t work on apps installed via snap.
I still haven’t been able to come up with a KDE based distro (because it’s way more familiar to Windows users) that actually meets the needs of non technical users.
This is, again, an atypical use-case. Despite that, it’s not hard to find the answers. Googling for “Linux Japanese keyboard layout” comes up with an easy-to-follow guide in the first 5 search results, literally on the Ubuntu forums. Understand I’m not saying the use case is particularly RARE, but it’s not the norm either. And honestly, Snap sucks anyway. 😂
It could certainly be better supported and better documented, but you’re looking through the lens of your specific experience, not realizing your experience is not that of the every day, average PC user.
Put up a dart board of the most widely used KDE distributions and throw a dart. You’ve got a KDE distro that actually meets the needs of a non-technical user. Kubuntu, Linux Mint’s KDE edition, Fedora, OpenSUSE, hell throw Manjaro with KDE on. The desktop environment has zero bearing on a distro’s ability to act like a computer, it’s only the paint on the walls. If a distro “fits the needs of a non-technical user” by your definition with, say, GNOME or Cinnamon or XFCE or Budgie or whatever else, it’ll do it with KDE too. Desktop environment != distribution.
Don’t use snaps.
People shouldn’t be using Ubuntu either but I suppose that’s not going to happen. Just use a derivative like Linux Mint
Try doing professional level photo editing on Linux
I can be on a tirade about this. If only Krita decided to expand their focus instead of being conservative about their goals, or if GIMP actually had competent people years ago. But, now I’m at a point where I just don’t give a damn about FOSS editing, and fine with let it all burn.
Lol! I’m fine with GIMP, actually. As a matter of fact, I prefer it to Photoshop. That’s likely due to GIMP being my first introduction to photo manipulation though, and so I’m used to its paradigm.
Photo EDITING, though? There’s no competition on Linux for the likes of Lightroom or Capture One Pro (my preferred RAW editing software). I gave up photography for a while because I hated editing my photos on Linux so much. I tried EVERY alternative Linux had to offer, and they all suck. Eventually, I started carrying around a USB-C SD card reader and just transferring photos of my camera to my phone to edit them in Snapseed of all things, I hated editing on Linux so much.
My try with GIMP is that I find that the interface is clunky, and the absence of non-destructive editing, and it’s nowhere near the level of Krita/PS at a mechanical level. I tried the version with NDE in GIMP, but I just hate the flow and I find the absence of ease of access to filter as well as lack of inherent mask a issue. So, I’ll stick with Krita instead, and it works out for my needs, but I’m not fully satisfied unless I have better selection tools in there.
Yea, that was my take as well. Try RawTherapee, they said. Nope, inferior, there were some photos where I could spot them in full-screen view, not even at 100%.
The one everyone always drones on and on about is Darktable… Don’t get me wrong, it’s a powerful piece of software. But… It’s lackluster compared to the competition. I used it for a long time, figuring if I just made myself keep using it I’d get used to it… And then I actually stopped and thought about that sentence, lol. I shouldn’t have to Stockholm’s myself into liking a piece of software.
Oh yea, I tried that too, nope, just simply can’t compare. That’s why Adobe still gets my money as much as I don’t want to give it to them. Luckily the Photography plan hasn’t increased in price… yet.
Linux isn’t frustrating at all. Not sure what you’re on about.
@aniki k
How long until Mom gets malware from them?
This is what i fear. How much curation and monitoring will done on the ads, or this will be another vector for malicious application
I assumed it was “just” for apps in the Microsoft store. So they shouldn’t get viruses, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t getting software that is garbage.
How long until we get to the default “I don’t get paid to ask questions” mentality of ad services.
Note:
- disable ads on moms notebook
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.
You could also disable all this shit pretty easily too, for about the same amount of effort as getting someone acclimated to a new OS.
Every single bullshit thing these articles bring up, there’s simple controls built into Windows to handle. Most easily through Group Policy with a Pro license, easily bought from an OEM license seller for $20 or just spoofed.
For this bullshit in particular: Settings > Personalization > Start and turn off the toggle for “Show recommendations for tips, app promotions, and more.”
That’s the thing, she’s getting tired of having to do all that bullshit and then getting a lot of it reverted during an update. The annoyances are starting to outweigh the convenience. She’s not dumb, she knows her way around computers and is well aware of methods to disable this crap.
for every person that figures out how to disable this stuff, there are many thousands of others who don’t, don’t bother, or don’t even know it might be possible to… which is why they pull this shit in the first place–and (usually) get away with it.
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?
