I see ads pretty much everyday in Windows. They're not as attention grabbing as traditional ads and I think this is part of why some people don't see them.

I’ve personally seen ads in the start menu. It was my last straw, convincing me to move to Linux full time.

Windows is selling data from what you do and making money and you just aren't noticing the ads are tailored to you.

It's the type of thing that seems harmless, unless you are a woman searching for an abortion provider and Microsoft sells that, and then an ultra-right wing religious majority comes to power and decides to retroactively put to death all women who have had an abortion and use that data to put you to death.

This surveilance mechanism is mostly harmless... until one day it's not.

Yea same here. In all my years using a computer, I've never seen such a thing aside from "preinstalled" apps. Is this a regional thing?

0 ads too, windows 11 last update. Lemmy circlejerk is pretty much this. These threads are either fake news or ragebait, and the comments are just uninformed/untested opinions.

That without saying that win11 ltsc exists now. At least is something to test.

The second part is probably true, but ya, also don't encounter too many ads except for like some default game programs or something installed with the OS that are easy to remove from the Start menu and then you never see them again.

when was the last time you installed windows? Also, what version? If you've only ever had it set up for you, then you may have only used windows that had already been cleaned of all the bullshit. This includes pc s provided by your work.

For win10, the install iso provided by microsoft puts ads for games in the windows store in the default start menu. I have installed many win10 pc s over the years, and candy crush (among others) is always there.

Win 8 was aggregious. 10 is more subtle (little notifications now and then)

Enterprise is better