Microsoft wipes out evidence of real ads in Windows 11 Start menu

Recommendations and App Promotions sound an awful lot like ads to me. Showing me things I didn't ask for that you wish to sell me....that's called advertising and I don't care what dumb name you call it, they're still ads. Show me only what I actually want to see - the stuff I explicitly choose to pin to my personalized Start menu.

And this feature was implemented into an OS you have to pay for. 💀💀💀

lol, I have never once paid for any of the copies of windows I’ve used over the years
- Yes, you have. It's just part of the price for the PC you buy.
- irm https://massgrave.dev/get | iex

Microsoft: "We're sorry, this is all just a misunderstanding. We thought you were too stupid to notice."

Hahaha. This one got me.

So, Microsoft recognized and responded to all the complaints by removing the feature that people were objecting to.

Resulting headline: "Microsoft is trying to hide the evidence that they were thinking of doing that thing we hated! Hate them harder!"

Do people want companies to just ignore complaints completely because there's no way to satisfy anyone anyway?

ehh... I think you're missing the part where Microsoft is actively exploiting its customer base throughout its entire product catalogue - the likelihood that this is an actual win is no.
- They’re tasked with infinitely growing their stock price. That is a suicide job. Working big tech in the USA sucks right now because there’s no concept of just maintaining and maintaining something well, unless you’re Valve and steam
People want companies to stop trying to exploit them in every little way.
We can be satisfied by respecting us and treating us as customers, even when advertisers are throwing money at them.
- And that's what Microsoft has apparently done in this case, yet it's being spun negatively anyway.
They don't deserve praise for not doing something bad. They deserve praise when they do something good that they weren't forced to do.
They didn't do this from goodwill, but because it was predicted to hurt the bottom line. They'll do it again as soon as it's forgotten about. This isn't the last you've heard from this.

Too late. I've already switched all four of my home PCs to Linux Mint.

Likewise. Debian, installed Steam, updated my graphics driver, and everything runs smoothly. I'm surprised how well Linux gaming has come along!
To be honest I don't think that Linux is of any concern to them. Windows 11 is losing market share to windows 10. They are competing among themselves.
They need everyone to move on from windows 10 before they start slamming ads in windows 11.
- If I needed to install right now, it would be 10, not 11.
Gramps needed his excel icon - on the monitor I might add - or else. Debloat and activation scripts got him his windows 7 and office 2007 experience back, he was very appreciative of my "hack", merely for the same experience he paid for back some 15 years.
He doesn't know what a "Linux" is, but I am greatful that people are still invested enough to make utilities to return back to a more user centric experience in windows - even if I certainly don't care to go back

wipes out evidence

I am certain it can be re-enabled with regedit

Oh man, I was a bit worried. I paid for top dollar equipment for my rig and I would hate for my system to not sweat with a malnourished start menu.

It’s the first move to making it normalized. It’s the “toes in the water” stage of advertising in your OS.

Why does this article use the term "real ads" every time instead of just "ads"? Is this just weird or does it have a technical meaning?

Well, if those were "legitimate" ads the OS would have ways of shutting those down.
That aside, anyone thinking that's the last time they'll try that shit is oblivous. It will come back, because why not. Only solution is to finally stop using Windows if you can, or at least dual boot.
- As long as you aren't beholden to specific software, it is becoming increasingly pleasant to use the Linux ecosystem.
  Frankly, I never understood why businesses were invested in the office suite anyway. Considering there are so many good open source alternatives.
  The only pain point in it's getting a little better is graphic design.
- Ii get that reference and hate you for reminding me of it.
- Of course it will come back, soon as Win10 EoL
Dunno, but within the context, Microsoft claimed only ads for Microsoft products. Now, whether those products are predatory mobile games for example, well that's technically within the said terms. It's basically a matter of scope and wordplay.

Microsoft is dead to me.

Maybe if after a disastrous enough reception of Windows 11 they might make a Windows 12 that actually cares about being more palatable to the users, like they did with Windows 7 following the disaster that was Vista.

But I think they'll most probably only move to meet us halfway like they did with Windows 10 following the other disaster that was 8. Where they replaced a major irritant with another and then slowly stacked more and more irritants with updates thereafter. They are too addicted to the revenue from data harvesting to give it up.

Lol
I think you expected too much out of them
- The sad part is that all of this is all self-inflicted in the name of "growth" for the shareholders. They absolutely could take 7, modernize it, call it "12" and release it as a lightweight, fast and more privacy-respecting OS. It would probably be far cheaper to make as well.
  But that's not what the Corporate elements of the company want. They see the OS as a platform to force feed to the users features that they can market as "lucrative" to the shareholders. Nobody else wants that. I predict that Windows 12 will have some sort of baked in "AI" that you can't get rid of as a bare minimum.
  But this is none of my concern. They've finally pushed me over the hump and now I'm 100% sold to Linux. It has gotten so much more approachable than it used to be. Especially with Mint.

What's a "real" ad? They use that term multiple times and I can't imagine how it is different from a normal ad or if the adds that the start menu already had were somehow different from normal ads.

They aren't ads. They are "App Promotions".

Better to just wipe out Windows entirely and be done with it.

And then what? What's going to replace it? As of right now there is no alternative that can do what windows can do. There are other operating systems that can do some of the stuff but not all of it.
- What can windows as an operating system do that no other can do? Do they have magical scheduling?
- That’s a nice generalization and all, but mostly just a lackluster cop-out that I’ve heard a million times. It’s not like windows is some high and mighty operating system which is the only thing capable of running some software because it’s so awesome. Linux is really good at a lot of things like gaming, security, data analytics, and continues to get better. Lots of money was put into developing windows and making it usable for most people. If more money was put towards the development of Linux for the purpose of
  <insert your generalized cop-out argument>
  , you’d have one less thing to bitch about.

W11 is such a great example of how out-of-touch Microsoft's management and shareholders are. Its market share is tiny compared to W10 and is actively decreasing and they think pulling stunts like this is going to be beneficial in some way. Like even if you follow the usual routine of enshittification, they've missed the entire part where they expand their userbase first before making things worse.

MS needs a leadership shakeup so badly.

Meh, I despise this bullshit too, but it only affects home users, and their bread and butter is corporate, which they own.
I'd say a minor misstep, that they can easily recover from (and I say this grudgingly, because this crap really pisses me off).