Windows 11 Start Menu Gets Ads

Microsoft is once again testing advertising for its own products in Windows 11. This time the promotion appears in the Start menu.

As with the previous testing, it's unclear how likely the advertising is to be rolled out to all users. It seems Microsoft is not just testing the technology itself but also how users will respond.

Back in March, a selection of users in the Windows 11 test program started seeing promotions in the File Explorer tool. One suggested the user install a Microsoft-made browser extension for getting spelling and grammar suggestions when typing on websites such as forums.

At the time, Microsoft says the promotion was being tested internally and it had not intended to show it to any users, even those in the public test program.

Notification Badge Nags

This time round, Microsoft trailed the testing, albeit in a low key manner. In a document listing the changes in a recent test edition of Windows 11 it said "we are trying out a small change to the Start menu where some Insiders will see 'badging' on their user profile notifying them that certain actions need to be taken." (Source: windowscentral.com)

In principle that might be useful if the actions were necessary, for example saving documents and closing applications, or installing a key update.

However, several users have noticed a "badge" appearing in the Start menu when they go to shut down their computer. This badge shows an orange notification "dot", a common way of showing that an application has an update or notification, or needs some user action.

OneDrive Promoted

The text next to the badge reads "Complete your profile" or a similar message. Depending on the promotion, clicking through will either ask the user to sign up for a Microsoft account, or suggest they set up a OneDrive account. That's Microsoft's real-time backup service that copies files to a remote cloud server.

That's proven particularly controversial as OneDrive is a "freemium" service. Users can backup 5GB of files free of charge, but more extensive packages start at $20 a year.

Microsoft hasn't commented publicly on the testing other than to repeat the wording from the test program changelog. (Source: theregister.com)

What's Your Opinion?

Should Microsoft place promotional material in the Start menu? Is it misleading to label signing up to OneDrive as a required action? Do you think it will roll this out to all users?