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.
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…
And they called Google scroogle😆
Me, on my Ubuntu machine: 🧐🤔😂😂😂😂😂😂
What’s the best Linux distro for just running steam on startup? Chimera?
i would say bazzite
Do apps like classicshell still work?
Do Win 10 LTSC users still get shoveled this shit? I’m asking for a friend.
I haven’t gotten shoveled this shit for the entire course of my install, which has been since win 10 came out
to everyone? I use linux, i didn’t know MS had that level of influence.
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.
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.
The only place this will be active is on the computers of home users who don’t know how or don’t care to deactivate it. The computers of the common clay of IT usage. You know. Morons.
And to tie that meme in with an older one: A fool and his money are soon parted.
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.
Yeah if your app has in app purchases or requires payment it probably can show up here. Probably in the contract you sign to put your app in the Microsoft store
They also may be included if you pay for your app to be on the homepage of the Microsoft store
No candy crush for this guy!
Or 1Password, apparently
I have the same policy for pop up ads.
Don’t disagree with the sentiment but I didn’t think companies had this much leeway in how their ads were displayed.
They can pick which type of ads they buy which this certainly will be its own premium category
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 made it through two whole top level comments before getting to a switch to Linux comment.
So you’re saying we should do better?
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.
It was my turn this week!
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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 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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
But they could be paying the most money even more.
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.
edit For those who come across this who has the same issue as I did. Video: https://youtu.be/sGJL62ZYRTU?t=77 Text: Boot to your BIOS. Get to the MAIN tab and hit CTRL+S to show hidden bios option. Disable Intel RST. Exit and Save. Re attempt to install Mint.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
