November 8, 2022
Microsoft, the parent company of Windows, is now advertising and promoting some of its products in the sign-out menu, which appears when you click on the user icon in the Windows 11 Start menu.
Microsoft is again using ads in the Start menu to promote its own products and services, in particular OneDrive and Microsoft accounts.
Albacore, a Windows enthusiast, discovered the new Windows 11 ad feature and shared several screenshots of ad notifications in the Accounts flyout. According to the screenshots, Microsoft promotes the OneDrive file hosting service and encourages users to create or complete their Microsoft accounts.
The ads appear in the Start menu’s user-switching/sign-out section, prompting users to add a new entry at the top of the menu to “Backup your files.” Users will be redirected to the OneDrive website after clicking the link. Ads have also been seen encouraging users to create a Microsoft account and “Complete Your Profile.”
This new feature follows previous ads that appear in the user interface of Microsoft Office apps or other Windows apps. Others include ads for Microsoft 365 Family subscriptions to Office 2021 customers, with discounts of more than $28 for a 3-month Family plan subscription, ads for some Microsoft products (including Microsoft Editor) in the File Explorer app and promotional messages for OneDrive ads in 2016.
The sources for this piece include an article in BleepingComputer.
