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Microsoft Adding More Ads To Windows 10 Start Menu (theverge.com)

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the more-delight-and-annoyances dept.

Microsoft plans to double the number of promoted apps in Start menu. The change, which is scheduled to come with the upcoming Anniversary Update to Windows 10, will see the promoted apps count rise to 10. Tom Warren, writing for The Verge: Some promoted apps are pre-installed, but Microsoft notes that they can be fully uninstalled and any promoted items removed from the Start menu. Microsoft has not revealed exactly why the number of promoted apps is doubling, but it's likely that the company is using it as another method to attract developers to its Windows Store.

30 of 328 comments (clear)

  1. I Want Some! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Where do I go to bend over?

  2. Classic Shell by dejavu_1980 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Just install Classic Shell

    1. Re:Classic Shell by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Better yet, move to an OS that actually respects the user. Corporate controlled anything sucks to a large degree, hence my choosing to use Linux, especially the non-sponsored distros that do what they want. I'm not joking and this ads things isn't funny. People just laugh at this and write it off. What's next? A quota on allowed files and photos? Permission to scan said documents? A limit to how many people can have accounts on said machine? Microsoft has gotten worse, if this could be possible, not better.

      If you're in IT and you choose to use Windows as your personal OS, you have no one to blame for your troubles. MS in effect, is forcing Windows 10 on people. Yes, you can opt out, but for the average person, it's not obvious. Ads on my OS? Really? Dystopian future much?

    2. Re:Classic Shell by ITRambo · · Score: 4, Informative

      Classic Shell is not banned as such, and likely won't be as it uses a Windows installer. But, updates to Windows may break Classic Shell, in which case the latest version needs to be downloaded and installed if one wants to keep the Windows 7 look and feel. Many of us thought the evil empire was dead when the new management took over. Instead, they've doubled down on stepping on consumer's toes by turning every annoying thing on that is in Windows 10. Enterprise users, the big money maker for MS, will be able to deploy images that are exactly what they want them to be. Others, nope, since Enterprise isn't sold as an upgrade from Windows Pro, or as a one pack. It's large volume purchase only.

    3. Re:Classic Shell by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Better yet, move to an OS that actually respects the user. Corporate controlled anything sucks to a large degree

      You mean like Red Hat and systemd?

    4. Re:Classic Shell by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      RH and Fedora are corporate. systemd is largely in place because of Red Hat and would have died on the vine without Red Hat. Gnome is Red Hat's default DE, so there you go as far as Gnome requiring systemd. BSD looks real good about now. I doubt that Theo de Raadt, for example, would be in any hurry to ever allow something like systemd in OpenBSD. Thankfully, he's also opposed to binary blobs, which are not in OpenBSD. Love him or hate him, but Theo is a damn good project manager.

      Linux has become balkanized over the last few years, and systemd has widened the gap between those who truly value freedom and those who go along with corporate dictates. Honestly, the longer this plays out, the more I'm drawn to FreeBSD, Gentoo, and Slackware.

    5. Re:Classic Shell by Grishnakh · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There's no proprietary applications because all the users insist on sticking with Windows, and refuse to budge. So fuck 'em: let them pay lots of money to look at ads and deal with a shit UI.

      GIMP works fine for me, BTW, but Krita is really more user-friendly. LibreOffice works better than MS Office. And lots of stuff is going to web-based services these days so you don't need desktop apps for them. But for places where your business needs some app and it only works on Windows, have fun suffering with MS's abuse. I have no sympathy. That's what you get for not forcing vendors to support your chosen platform. Some vendors support MacOSX because customers demanded it, so it's not like you're forced to use Windows everywhere.

    6. Re:Classic Shell by Obfuscant · · Score: 5, Funny

      You've freely chosen it,

      Citation required.

    7. Re:Classic Shell by Grishnakh · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You can complain all you want, but you're wasting your breath. The company doesn't give a shit what you think.

  3. God. Damnnit. by eumoria · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Candy Crush and Twitter already re-install themselves every time I update the OS. It's a trivial powershell script to remove them again but how many more will re-install themselves every time I update after this garbage is added. Installing apps I haven't requested ONE TIME is already too many fuck this nonsense no one is ever going to use your proprietary app store, Microsoft, give it up please.

    1. Re:God. Damnnit. by Dracos · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And who will those deserters be?

      Not corporate users, MS doesn't inflict this on paying customers.

      Not new PC buyers, MS still has the OEMs wrapped around their finger.

      Not the average user, they lack the acumen and bravery required to install an OS that's completely alien to them.

      Who's left to embark on your grand exodus that will starve the beast?

    2. Re:God. Damnnit. by Froboz23 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Who here is old enough to remember the Columbia House Record Club? I figure they'll wait until 2017 to roll this out.

      "Welcome to Windows 10! As mentioned in the EULA, you are now enrolled in the Windows 10 Premium App Experience! Each month, we'll pre-install exciting new applications from our partners. For your convenience, your Microsoft Store account will be automatically billed for the premium versions of these apps, so you can get maximum enjoyment from your software. You will then have 48 hours to try out each of your new apps. If you decide for whatever reason that an app just isn't for you, you can request a refund by typing in the link below and filling out the refund form. Please allow 4 to 6 weeks for refund processing. Refunds will be distributed in the form of a pre-paid Visa card. Enjoy your new Windows 10 Premium App Experience!"

      --
      Take off every Sig. For great justice.
    3. Re:God. Damnnit. by Grishnakh · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I don't think they're going to desert either, no matter how awful MS treats them.

      What'll eventually happen is that tablet-like devices will make home PCs obsolete. People will get sick of MS's crapware, and younger people just won't bother buying into it, and will get iPads instead or whatever. But MS will enjoy years and years of profits from older people who refuse to give up their PCs, just like cable companies are still getting lots of profits from idiots who refuse to "cut the cord" because they're addicted to sports and cable TV. Eventually, the customers will die out, but it'll take decades, kinda like Lincoln cars.

  4. Correction by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Microsoft notes that they can be fully uninstalled and any promoted items removed from the Start menu for now

    There. Fixed that for ya. If there's anything Microsoft taught us lately, is that whatever they say or promise cannot be trusted.

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  5. Why isn't it free to everyone? by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 5, Insightful

    With stunts like that, pushing ads and apps on people and everything, why does it still cost something to get Windows 10?

    Put the damn ISO on your website, unlock the damn activation/serial/whatever thing and you'll get more users.

  6. You got it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You want a proprietary OS? You got it.. What you are looking at is the future of proprietary operating systems. Their purpose won't be to facilitate your work; that's only a nuisance. Their purpose will be to tag and track you, and then do whatever it takes to profit off that information.

    1. Re:You got it by Grishnakh · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Exactly. When you buy into a proprietary vendor's offerings, you're buying into their business model and their reputation. Why would you continue to patronize a vendor that blatantly abuses its customers? At some point, the abuser is no longer to blame, the blame lies with the abusee who refuses to leave and willingly submits to the abuse.

  7. What happened after win7?? by Billly+Gates · · Score: 3, Interesting

    MS finally got me to switch back from Linux from a host OS to a guess one. It was stable, secure, gorgeous, ran smooth without winrot of XP, and was a great but boring desktop OS to get work done.

    As an IT professional I need to use the latest and greatest to keep my skills up and not look incompetent when an executive for example in a conference room needs help on his Windows 10 tablet etc.

    Win 8 was fine except the GUI and artwork. I upgraded kicking and crying because I needed to learn Hyper-V. Windows 10 my God is just terrible. Re0imaged my system 4 times already due to bugs. If you run a sfc /scannow it will corrupt ESSENT database. Only a re-image can fix it. No DISM /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth will make it worse! Acutally it will complain about the source files. Put on your installation cd and it will break Windows 10 as it will put outdated .dll's back. It is Vista quality.

    Windows bright white windows titles ARE TERRIBLE. I enabled color in settings but I do not like how it looks. The icons on the taskbar pinned are too freaking SMALL. Oh, that is right I should have a gigantic start screen and pin down "My documents" "My downloads", etc. Under Windows 7/8.1 if you install Office 2016 it will actually put the icons there for you pinned in the taskbar. MS is forcing it's view of tiles and running cell phones on computers for familiarity hoping us old farts who hate change will want to use Windows Phones. YEAH RIGHT.

    I am not an MS hater anymore. But man, Windows is bad again after it finally stopped sucking. The only good thing about MS is visual Studio and Office. I suppose I like tablet features and Netflix and Hulu apps on the road or on a 2nd monitor if I want to watch Star Trek while I work etc. But, man Windows 10 is years off.

    Do not get me on the schziphrenic gui either. Now with 3 UI's which include a hamburger menu.

    But MS is making it worse by forced upgrades, spyware, and now ads. I do not want 10 anywhere near my computers! But I need them for Hyper-V for my MS certifications so what choice do I have?

    Windows 10 is going to be the next XP sadly after 3 short years. Sigh. I hope if we all yell enough MS will mature it and change by 2019 when Windows 7 goes EOL and we are forced to use it.

    --
    http://saveie6.com/
  8. Is it just me? by JustNiz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...or does anyone else also think that ads have NO PLACE being in the freaking operating system?

    1. Re:Is it just me? by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 5, Informative

      ...or does anyone else also think that ads have NO PLACE being in the freaking operating system?

      Definitely not just you. It's just that Microsoft doesn't care what people want, Microsoft cares about what Microsoft wants.

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    2. Re:Is it just me? by swb · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I don't think it's an operating system anymore, it's generation 1 of the customer engagement interface.

      I don't know how they'll deal with this at the business level. Really small businesses that buy PCs with Windows preinstalled probably will be told to just stuff it up their asses, most won't switch to Linux or MacOS due to software dependencies and other issues. Which is part of MS plan, obviously, to be able to provide advertising "reach" to the business demographic and not just the hapless home users.

      Larger businesses will be told they can buy enterprise licenses where these features are off by default and/or see the 10 page technet document on 47 changes that can be made at each workstation to disable these features. Microsoft will end up using added features as a way to extract more money from customers who don't want those features.

      More businesses that wouldn't ordinarily want enterprise will end up buying it at greater cost and probably more than a few double-buying Windows by buying enterprise volume licenses to image over the Pro version it shipped with.

      Maybe I'm just too naive to understand the MBA financial model behind all of this, but it strikes me that had Microsoft consolidated their desktop operating system into a single edition around the time of XP or 7 and stopped trying to use it as a marketing platform they would have a lot more end user good will. Why they're choosing to lose even more good will by force-feeding their marketing platform when alternatives are more prevalent than ever (linux, mac os, saas, cloud, mobile, etc etc etc) is mystifying to me.

  9. Thank you sir, may I have another? by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "Microsoft plans to double the number of promoted apps in Start menu."

    Well if they do this just 3 or 4 more times it'll be promoted apps all the way down.

    No need for pesky files or personal stuff, it'll be nothing more than a dedicated ad platform.

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  10. jesus redmond, what have you become? by nimbius · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Windows started out as a convenient wrapper for Dos, and now we're here. We have updates that are non-negotiable, apps that are installed by default, integration with a video game console, and an entire ecosystem of advertising built-in to the UI. Theres powershell, Linux BASH, and ssh as well as a talking assistant.

    after 197 mergers or takeovers in its history its taken Microsoft just 15 years to pedal themselves to an early grave, and windows 10's schitzophrenic laundry list of things it seeks to achieve for the user is an excellent barometer of the companies 'significant changes' after Ballmer was quietly hustled out to the parking lot. There really isnt any direction, but a very obvious pattern.
    1. a trend emerges, catches on, and becomes a hit.
    2. Microsoft, four years later, creates its own version of the product or technology at the center of the trend.
    3. The product, (zune, windows phone, market) is brutalized for three or four more years while microsoft keeps it on X-Box revenue life support.
    4. MS quietly shuffles the technology under the rug four more years later, abandoning and alienating nontrivial numbers of users and sacking the entire division that once handled the product.

    Hololens, minecraft, the self driving car, surface, phone, cloud -- these are all things that have existed better and cheaper in many cases than microsofts version yet still unaccountably exist as a microsoft offering seemingly just out of spite. Bing was a 7 year attempt at a hostile takeover that is entirely powered by yahoo engine patents and screen scrapes from Google and it still hands out some of the least meaningful or relevant garbage results. The walk-in microsoft store is a godless abortion of over-illuminated copy-paste from whatevers going on in an Apple store, and its performance is so dismal its being rolled into Best Buy stores as a kiosk.

    So the question still remains. after 15 years, where the hell do you want to go today, Microsoft? because everywhere isnt a direction.

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
  11. This should have been expected by wardrich86 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why are people so up-in-arms over the ads in Windows 10, yet, they don't even blink an eye at the ads you get on the XBOX, even with a Gold subscription? It's the same shit - if you're paying for something, there should not be ads.

  12. Onion-like by gnu-sucks · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ten years ago this would have appeared to be a post from The Onion. I can't believe this is really happening.

    I dumped Windows 3.1 for Mac and later Linux, and I haven't really looked back since. Sure I bump into windows now and then, but I don't feel like I've missed out on anything.

    But this takes the cake. How ridiculous can you get? They must have seen the writing on the wall and decided to go out with a big hurrah.

  13. Promoted Apps are Automatically Installed???? by EmagGeek · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Am I reading this right? I can actually pay Microsoft to install applications on millions of PCs without the owners'... I mean "users'" permission?

    Tell me again why ANYONE finds this acceptable?

  14. I miss Ballmer by Khashishi · · Score: 4, Funny

    There aren't enough chairs being thrown these days.

  15. Can't wait by DidgetMaster · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I can't wait until we are all forced to watch a 30 second ad before our program will start. Want to run Microsoft Word, Skype, or even a third-party app? You must watch a commercial that you can't skip, first.

  16. ridiculous, but easily blocked by argStyopa · · Score: 4, Informative

    Let me be clear, I think pushing ads into the OS is pretty nearly the definition of dystopian and frankly obscene.

    It is easy to block however:
    http://bgr.com/2015/11/20/wind...
    As CNET helpfully explained this week, you only need to follow a few steps to turn off ads:

    Open the âSettingsâ(TM) menu
    Click on âPersonalizationâ(TM)
    Click on âStartâ(TM) at the bottom of the left-hand column
    Find a heading labeled âoeOccasionally show suggestions in Startâ and turn the switch to the âOffâ(TM) position

    BTW: take the opportunity while you're in settings to turn off ALL THE OTHER SHIT THAT'S ON BY DEFAULT in WIN10.

    --
    -Styopa
  17. Re:Microsoft is imitating Facebook and Google? 2 Q by lgw · · Score: 3, Informative

    I understand that there are sometimes vulnerabilities that allow an OS to break out of the VM.

    These are very rare and valuable. Much more so than a run-of-the-mill Linux privilege escalation exploit. You don't need a bank vault door on a house with glass windows.

    The normal thing malware does when it detects a VM is immediately stop, or sometimes unhook itself, as a way to foil some malware detection engines and generally make life harder for security researchers.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.