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.
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
The package manager was actually one of the simpler things about switching to Linux in my experience
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.
This was my experience precisely. These days, installing some .msi or .exe.from some obscure corner of the internet seems somewhat ass backwards.
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.
Two minutes later
“Wait, you mean I get fast, convenient package delivery without being advertised to?”
Out of all of things in Linux a package manager most of the time is there to save your sanity.
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.
You can use the official WinGet package manager for Windows pretty easily.
you can also just use linux. Every flavor of linux except for nix (kind of) and LFS have a package manager
Shhhhh Windows bad! /s
I mean… Windows is bad in many respects, but that respect isn’t necessarily one of them.
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.
As opposed to having a bajillion specific distros, repos, and sources flying around…?
Obviously I’d never touch the Microsoft store though.
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)
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.
use NixOS to get absolutely fucked.
I use NixOS btw
(don’t actually use NixOS as your first distro. It is really amazing and cool, but the learning curve will be so steep, it will kill you)
Dont forget dependencies
I didn’t know about them in order to forget :,(
package managers are your heaven, and a windows users hell.
They’re great.