When is an ad an advertisement and not a recommendation? Microsoft clearly likes to use the term recommendation for what others may see as an advertisement.
There are recommendations in the Start menu, Settings app, Lock screen, File Explorer, Get Help app, and other areas of the operating system already. These are often not that useful. App recommendations in the Start menu are limited to Microsoft Store apps.
Now, Microsoft is testing recommendations in the Microsoft Store app. If you never use the app, you won’t be exposed to these. If you do, you may notice recommendations popping up when you try to use the built-in search.
First spotted by phantomofearth on X, two or three recommendations are shown whenever search is activated in the official Microsoft Store app.
People need to stop complaining about the ads and they need to start complaining about the existence of a Windows monetization team.
Kill that team now while the revenue is small and the shareholders won’t throw a giant hissy fit.
As long as that team exists, they’re going to be putting ads in shit. Cut the head off the snake.
Are we speaking metaphorically or literally? sharpens blades
Yes
Ad injection will continue till public morale improves
I’ve recently made the switch over to LinuxMint and I was shocked. Installing a popular Linux Distro is EASIER than installing Windows 10/11 at this point. Seriously. The Linux installer is super noob friendly, very quick and straight to the point, it doesn’t need you to create an online account and you don’t need be wary of accidentally giving any corporation the rights to steal your data.
And all the software I use (Steam, Discord, Spotify, Firefox, Thunderbird, …) were all downloadable from the GUI Installer and worked right away OUT OF THE BOX. No fiddling in any Terminal was required.
Seriously, it’s easier than installing Windows at this point.
As someone that has tried nearly every Linux desktop flavor\distro, Mint is GREAT for the novice. Or a pro even.
I’m not a Linux wizard but I’m pretty skilled and I love mint. Although, my preference recently changed to Fedora plasma.
And it doesn’t work with half the programs I use on a daily basis.
There’s ways to make A LOT of things compatible these days, or you could run a VM for your Windows apps.
I think a VM is a bad solution. Maybe if it’s a very rarely used program, but typically the stuff people need that don’t work in Linux are for work which is why people HAVE to use them.
If I did that, I’d just be working out of a windows vm 99% of my computing time, so it doesn’t make sense for me.
Omg I’m so mad about this
lol jk I use Linux
The last Windows 10 update automatically installed copilot without asking. Immediately deleted that shit
Thank you for letting me know. I will too.
A friend said it didn’t for him, but for me it was in slot 1 of the taskbar
It’s not on mine yet.
So some a/b testing maybe
I’d be curious at the percentage of windows users actually using the store app.
As for the context of these ads, the store would kind of make more sense than within your settings landing page, start menu, search dialog, browser nagware, solitaire app etc.
If I remember correctly some (mainly Microsoft made apps) are store only and some system apps are updated through it so probably a large part of users use it
Anecdotally, I don’t know anyone that uses it. In the years working IT since the Store came out, not a single coworker has asked me about it.
Logging into my customer’s computers and I don’t see any evidence that they use it either.
This is a fair point, an I had considered this to be a case but the store is capable of automatically updating apps in the background. I believe this is the default behaviour but I could be mistaken.
There is also a chance a user may be directed to the store if they’re required to buy the HEVC or install the AV1 system plugins.
The more relevant question IMO is what proportion of software (or by revenue) is installed through the Windows store.
Because compared to android (even counting Amazon fire and whatever other third party devices), I’m guessing that’s pretty low.
It’s a PC. Why would anyone use “the store” to install anything?
I’m so done with companies claiming my house for their ads.
It’s my house i decide what makes it in as i pay the rent and i bought these devices, so fuck off.
Is Microsoft so in debt that they need to sell ad space in every pixal of their products? What is going on.
Debt? This is capitalism, baby. Where every year’s profits have to be bigger than last year’s or else it counts as you failing, no matter how enormous the profits were last year.
The rate of profit is declining and the managers are looking for anything and everything to prop it back up. A German guy wrote about this like 150 years ago.
the 2nd most valuable company in the world? Hardly.
No they’re just switching business models, from paying for an OS outright to OS as a service
deleted by creator
Windows really is the worst OS. You pay 150$ for the license when you buy a laptop with it pre-installed and then on top of that, they spy on you and also show you ads.
Linux is free, does not spy on you and does not show any ads.
I’m so happy that I will never have to deal with this on my home computers. At work we can at least disable it all via policies. But my god has Microsoft lost its way. What happened to making professional business products?
So anyway, welcome to computing 101, first you’re going to create a new folder for your stuff. So let’s do this, grab the mouse, and;
Right click->watch ad->New Folder
Mr Bob! The mouse bit me and now I can’t stop the commercials!
Recommendations is just an euphemism marketing joke. Every serious journalist would call them what they are, ads.
I kind of expect ads in an app store, but I also don’t use the ms app store.
This is not gonna stop until the consumer puts their money where there mouths are and stops using Windows until Microsoft back peddles. Money is all a company understands so that is where you need to hit them if you want them to listen. But as a group the consumer has a very weak constitution when it comes to having to do something that is good for them in the long term but causes them short term inconvenience. A lot of parallels to the modern corporate world in that.
Could it be that consumers are putting money where there mouths are and this is just Microsoft desperately trying to increase their margins since their business isn’t growing anymore?
I mean the more people move away, the more likely it is Microsoft would milk the ones who can’t.
Especially considering the news on poor adoption rates for windows 11, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the case. It could also be an explanation as to why we are only seeing these ads added to w11 right now.
Isn’t something like half of Windows purchases from businesses though?
And I feel like the younger crowd isn’t even buying PCs. Just tablets and phones.
So, nothing will change, because businesses don’t care if Jerry from accounting has to look at a bud light advertisement as a recovering alcoholic.
And PCs might fade away like typewritters did.
But don’t worry. Printers will still exist wirelessly. They’ll still have a finicky driver that breaks if you even look at the printer, and it’ll still use ink that costs as much as a mortgage on a subscription model.
Because fuck trees!
As soon as they announced ads were gonna be in the start menu, i noped out of windows. I only use it for work which doesn’t bother me because im not doing anything private on my work pc.
I switched to Fedora 40 with KDE and never looked back. My only real gripe is with making music. Getting the VSTs to work and setting up yabridge is kind of a headache that i still need to do 😮💨 aside from that, Linux has been my daily driver for quite a while now and im happy i switched even though im still learning.
I have not dove into yabridge yet. What DAW did you go with?
After poking around I decided to go with Bitwig and skip trying to go with getting Ableton working with Proton or Wine. I’ve actually been enjoying some of their default VSTs as I practice my piano again, but I do miss my paid VSTs a lot.
Have been really looking around at the vsts that have native Linux support though. Was really glad to see of u-he’s VSTs worked natively.
I’m a huge fan of reaper. Nice clean daw for a good price imo. It being cross platform was a bonus. I started making music on Windows and the best part of switching to Linux was that reaper just works after figuring out how the hell to install it lol. Some Linux stuff im ok at but im still figuring things out.
And same here. I’m a self pianist like my grandfather was. I really like addictive keys for playing piano and was happy to see the standalone version works with bottles. But without yabridge setup, i haven’t been able to make much recently.
Ive been looking to find a replacement for addictive keys thats native to Linux or works well at least.
I will have to take a look at Reaper!
Its $60 for a personal/small bussines use and a great daw. Would recommend. But whatever daw works best for you is great too :)
The ads are in the app store. I don’t really understand why that’s a problem. Although I’m probably the only tool out there that actually likes Windows 11.
lol yep you probably are
Self aware idiot.
