A new Windows 11 update is rolling out this week.

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.

  • @ikiddEnglish
    17•7 months ago

    I feel angry when I have to hunt down the installer for an application under Windows, and then know I have to go find it again later to update it. I have no clue how I got by without a package manager on Windows. Though if they had one, you have to know it would be complete intrusive dogshit about 5 minutes into its existence.

    • Chaotic EntropyEnglish
      9•7 months ago

      You can use the official WinGet package manager for Windows pretty easily.

      • KillingTimeItselfEnglish
        2•7 months ago

        you can also just use linux. Every flavor of linux except for nix (kind of) and LFS have a package manager

        • Chaotic EntropyEnglish
          6•7 months ago

          I mean… Windows is bad in many respects, but that respect isn’t necessarily one of them.

          • KillingTimeItselfEnglish
            2•7 months ago

            idk man, it’s pretty bad, there’s winget, there;s chocolatey, and theres also microsoft store, and they’re like, all different?

            Oh and you can just install exes wildly like a rogue. Thats another option.

            • Chaotic EntropyEnglish
              1•7 months ago

              As opposed to having a bajillion specific distros, repos, and sources flying around…?

              Obviously I’d never touch the Microsoft store though.

              • KillingTimeItselfEnglish
                1•7 months ago

                are you using three distros simultaneously? (there are also like three or four primary distros, anything else is just that but different) Repos are a non issue because you literally just add them to your repo list, and then they just show up under your package manager. Sources is a non issue given package managers, unless you’re building from source, but that has nothing to do with it i suppose.

                To my knowledge, everything i listed their is a separate package manager, managing packages in different ways. It’d be like running pacman, apt and dnf on one machine simultaneously. Which isn’t possible unless you use void because you hate yourself. (jokes aside void does it a little differently)

    • @[email protected]English
      6•7 months ago

      As a former Windows user, Chocolatey is a great way to get used to a package manager through Windows. I used it to install stuff like hwinfo or wiztree.

      • @ikiddEnglish
        5•7 months ago

        Chocolatey’s saving grace is that it’s third party. IDK how well it’s maintained and expanded, it’s been some time since I used it and there wasn’t much on it when I did.

    • KillingTimeItselfEnglish
      0•7 months ago

      i still dont fucking understand updating packages on windows. God forbid you install it in a different directory 3 months from now when you no longer remember where you installed it.