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

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.

13 of 328 comments (clear)

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

    Where do I go to bend over?

  2. 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 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. 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
  4. 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.

  5. 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...
  6. 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.
  7. 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.

  8. 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?

  9. 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.

  10. 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.

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

    You've freely chosen it,

    Citation required.