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.
I have used Windows 10 for years and recently switched to Windows 11 and I don’t think I’ve ever seen an ad in my day to day OS use. I don’t do the registry edits or turn off the telemetry stuff, either. I don’t know what I’m doing differently but I’m not seeing these ads that apparently infected Windows.
The home edition of windows has these ads baked in, but the pro/enterprise editions seem to be able to avoid this for now.
If you also live in Europe or set up your computer in the US with European English then you can also skirt some of the ads as well
Most of these reports are about preview builds of Windows.
That said, surely you have seen recommendations from Microsoft to try their Office package and such oil up. It’s like that, but more intrusive.
I can’t believe Microsoft is making me switch from Windows to Mac and Linux, but here we are.
Actually, no I’ve never seen an ad for office but that might be because I’m already a customer.
