Lol. Another reason to be glad I don’t use Windows as my main OS.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

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.

“The Recommended section of the Start menu will show some Microsoft Store apps,” says Microsoft in the update notes of its latest public Windows 11 release.

Microsoft only started testing these ads two weeks ago, so it’s surprising to see this “feature” progress from the Beta Channel to release in such a short period of time.

At the time of initial testing I mentioned Microsoft “could decide to ditch these ads” if there was enough feedback that suggested they weren’t popular, but two weeks of feedback certainly isn’t long enough to determine that.

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.

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They aren't even labeled as ads/paid promotion, so I wonder if this even got legal's input. Something the FTC probably might be interested in.

Microsoft only started testing these ads two weeks ago, so it’s surprising to see this “feature” progress from the Beta Channel to release in such a short period of time.

Is it surprising, though? When earning more money is involved?

Is there a way to GPO this 'feature' off? Worried about some of our users getting confused.

Me, on my Ubuntu machine: 🧐🤔😂😂😂😂😂😂

The direction Windows 11 is taking is terrible but i've tried on multiple occasions (even this morning!) to game and consume my content on Ubuntu or Fedora and i run into so much trouble, that ill have to stick with Windows 11. I have been using Ubuntu at work for the last 10 years though as web development is great on it.

Issues i have:

• Lutris not finding GoG games
• Heroic working, but not being able to sync savegames for GoG
• Having installed GoG with Bottles and then the game itself works, but my framerate wasn't that great
• Nvidia driver getting borked after kernel update, need to switch to old kernel, uninstall, switch to new kernel, reinstall
• Mangohud flatpak not working together with Goverlay repo version
• Need alternative for Synology cloud sync. Maybe Syncthing or rsync with SMB
• And i need alternatives for fps limiting, undervolting and cpu undervolting. Haven't put enough time into it yet though
• I like the mouse acceleration on Windows and in KDE both flat and adaptive feel pretty flat. Probably can be tweaked with xinput or something, but you can't configure the acceleration amount by default

Maybe one day, but for now Windows is probably just the better choice for me and gaming (on a laptop). At least in Windows 11 they now allow you to not group the taskbar by default..