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.

    • 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)