Microsoft Intends To Place Advertisements In Windows 11’s Start Menu

(CTN News) – Microsoft has increased its advertising efforts in the past six months, in both how and where it is trying to reach you with its apps and services.

The company is already bringing more of MSN to the Windows 10 and Windows 11 lock screen, the Widgets panel is nothing more than a glorified advertisement board, and the Settings app is no longer coy about trying to sell you on Microsoft 365 subscriptions.

Now, Microsoft is looking to open up advertising in another area of the Windows Shell, in particular, the “Recommended” section of the Windows 11 Start menu, where it says that this area will now feature apps and websites the company thinks you might be interested in trying out.

In view of the fact that this change is still in preview testing, it may not be implemented if there is not enough feedback about it from users.

There will be an option for users to turn it off if they want to if it does ship. This can be done by heading into Settings > Personalization > Start, and turning off “Show recommendations for tips, app promotions, and more” in the Start menu will disable the ads from showing up in the Start menu. The following is how Microsoft announced the “feature” in their announcement:

On the Start menu, under Recommended, you can now discover great apps you may never have heard of from the Microsoft Store thanks to recommendations.

As of this moment, this will only appear for Windows Insiders in the U.S. Beta Channel, and will not apply to commercial devices (devices managed by organizations).

To turn this feature off, go to Settings > Personalization > Start and turn off the toggle for “Show recommendations for tips and app promotions as well as more information” by going to Settings > Personalization > Start.

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