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.

  • @[email protected]
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    467 months ago

    Oh look another reason why I’ll be switching to Linux next time I have to upgrade my pc. Fml I’m going to have to learn what a package manager is ew

    • @[email protected]
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      427 months ago

      Fml I’m going to have to learn what a package manager is ew

      Two minutes later

      “Wait, you mean I get fast, convenient package delivery without being advertised to?”

    • @[email protected]
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      407 months ago

      The package manager was actually one of the simpler things about switching to Linux in my experience

      • @[email protected]
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        67 months ago

        Package managers was one of things that I had hard time adjusting to when I first adopted Linux, since I was so used to just searching for software on the internet, downloading, and installing it when I was using Windows. Now that I’m comfortable with a package manager, I find the Windows experience of installing software to be so much worse. It’s so much nicer to just install software using one or two commands in the terminal.

        • KillingTimeItself
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          27 months ago

          it’s often really hard to get around that “culture” barrier of just not downloading EXEs. Once you figure that out, it’s so much easier.

        • @[email protected]
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          27 months ago

          This was my experience precisely. These days, installing some .msi or .exe.from some obscure corner of the internet seems somewhat ass backwards.

    • @[email protected]
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      217 months ago

      Out of all of things in Linux a package manager most of the time is there to save your sanity.

    • @[email protected]
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      177 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 Entropy
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        97 months ago

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

        • KillingTimeItself
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          27 months ago

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

          • Chaotic Entropy
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            67 months ago

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

            • KillingTimeItself
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              27 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 Entropy
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                17 months ago

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

                Obviously I’d never touch the Microsoft store though.

                • KillingTimeItself
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                  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]
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        67 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.

        • @[email protected]
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          57 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.

      • KillingTimeItself
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        07 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.

    • stinerman [Ohio]
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      147 months ago

      I’ve been using some Linux flavor for about 15 years. The biggest thing about switching (at least back then) was I knew how to configure Windows just to my liking. With Linux it was a lot more difficult because I had to google everything. Like “how do I change the wallpaper?” How do I get the login screen to appear on the correct monitor, etc. It was just frustrating because I knew how to do this in Windows, but I felt like a major noob again with Linux.

      • @[email protected]
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        7 months ago

        15 years ago, you had to google everything, but people starting today will find it much easier with any of the modern GUIs.

        Plus consider the whole systemd fiasco. Old timers find it difficult to adjust to such a different paradigm and lose so much knowledge, but someone new to Linux doesn’t have any previous knowledge in the way, and may find it more similar to their Windows experience

      • @[email protected]
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        27 months ago

        Yup same here. But I’ve compiled my own kernel already…copy pasting instructions. I’ve chrooted to a failed X computer from a USB Linux to then fix X and go back to a good computer. I mean there are levels of engagement and it just takes time to learn. But certainly android users are using a Linux-like system themselves not knowing anything about the levels below where all the action is. You can make Linux as dumb as windows 3.0…well maybe not as dumb. And you can make it as configurable as you want. I mean, you could even rewrite all modules and recompile them such that if a virus is hitting all other Ubuntus or mints, your system would be fine because it was different by a single letter or something as such.