W11 24H2 Advertising ads feedback

Relating to this article:

Microsoft confirms showing two new ads on Windows 11, calls them “notifications”

I am getting very tired of these Windows 11 advertisements show up all the time. This makes me wonder if Microsoft is making systems suspectable to malware infections and other potential infections. There has been ads for porn web sites, Apple macOS computers, various games, and Apple iPhones. These are not really notifications, just very annoying advertising in abusing notifications.

If Microsoft is making Windows 11 more based on advertising, for their data mining purposes to profit on us, there should be a way they should pay us to use our "hardware/equipment" for their advertising. Microsoft is using our hardware freely for advertising and possibly infecting our computers for their gain. Maybe they should provide a decent Windows OS that actually run productively rather than like an advertising marketing scheme for everyone.

I know Microsoft does not care about us end users, which they have made very apparent over the years. One example of extremely poor software from Microsoft is the oxymoron "New Outlook". There is nothing "new" there except for more ads and pop-up windows nearly forcing you to subscribe to Outlook's email service starting at $1.99/month charge. Why pay for a sub-standard greatly lacking features in New Outlook when you compare to it to the "Classic" Outlook that has (or was) a standard for email. What a major step backwards and shows Microsoft's direction on Outlook is really going the wrong direction.

These invasive ads and Microsoft's marketing is making Windows look like a not very secure operating system and it is more for advertising and data mining our own data for Microsoft's gain. I know these ads are probably linked to Microsoft's AI-invasive Copilot "feature" to gain more control over everyone's data and computers. Maybe it is time for Microsoft needing to pay for use of our own hardware and quit stepping down on computer users rights as their data mining field of control.

I very rarely ever post anywhere, but these ads in Windows 11 is a mockery of Microsoft approach to an operating system. No wonder many users are wanting to migrate or switch to Linux or macOS. I know this is not always a viable approach for everyone, especially when it comes to software and what you know how to use.

Also posted here: W11 24H2 Advertising ads feedback

Nipdawg said:

There has been ads for porn web sites

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Lol what? In what part of Windows 11 are you seeing ads for those? Please explain.

Most of what I just read is unsubstantiated. I don’t have the time of day to pinpoint every aspect of your rant that holds no truth. But for a start, nobody, especially Microsoft, is forcing you to pay $1.99 for an Outlook email address or their email service.
You don’t need to use Outlook, nobody is forcing you to use an Outlook email client, try Thunderbird. Outlook email addresses are free. I have 8 Outlook.com email addresses, I use Thunderbird or Outlook from Office 2021, I get zero Microsoft ads.
I am aware that they show in the New Outlook but the ads that are sent via Outlook.com don’t come with pop-ups, nor does the Windows OS.
I don’t get where you’re getting this stuff from. Don’t confuse emails with the Windows OS

You’re entitled to your opinion about Microsoft but don’t pad it for effect.

antspants said:

Lol what? In what part of Windows 11 are you seeing ads for those? Please explain.

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In Microsoft's new "features" ads.

antspants said:

Most of what I just read is unsubstantiated. I don’t have the time of day to pinpoint every aspect of your rant that holds no truth. But for a start, nobody, especially Microsoft, is forcing you to pay $1.99 for an Outlook email address or their email service.

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There is an ads that is showing up that pops-up for about 30 seconds showing you should subscribe to the service. It is annoying. I am telling users to ignore it and they don't need to subscribe to the service. There are other ads that just shows it as an small ad, but this pop-up is annoying. Many user are thinking they need to subscribe. After seeing the ads myself, it is annoying. I have many outlook.com accounts, only a few of them are seeing this ad.

antspants said:

You don’t need to use Outlook, nobody is forcing you to use an Outlook email client, try Thunderbird. Outlook email addresses are free. I have 8 Outlook.com email addresses, I use Thunderbird or Outlook from Office 2021, I get zero Microsoft ads.

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Due to Microsoft forcing New Outlook on users, when you suddenly noticed New Outlook is there and Classic Outlook is not showing up for you, there is a problem. I have been moving many users back to Classic Outlook from New Outlook and this is causing havoc on users thinking something is broke.

antspants said:

I am aware that they show in the New Outlook but the ads that are sent via Outlook.com don’t come with pop-ups, nor does the Windows OS.
I don’t get where you’re getting this stuff from. Don’t confuse emails with the Windows OS

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There are porn ads, game ads, Apple ads, etc. showing up in the Notifications, some are from Microsoft Edge, and this is annoying. The company firewalls do not block these ads as they are coming from within Windows.

antspants said:

You’re entitled to your opinion about Microsoft but don’t pad it for effect.

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I deal with hundreds of problems per day and seeing the same stupid Microsoft "features" is frustrating enough. Microsoft needs to control their ads and allow the OS be an OS and not a marketing OS.

There are no porn ads showing in Windows *insert any version here*
There would be class actions from every religous group and parent, against Microsoft for subjecting people, especially children, to porn.

I just can’t comment on anything else without this being all about me tearing you down.

antspants said:

There are no porn ads showing in Windows *insert any version here*
There would be class actions from every religous group and parent, against Microsoft for subjecting people, especially children, to porn.

I just can’t comment on anything else without this being all about me tearing you down.

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The Fortinet firewall blocks all this stuff. I have cleared all cookies, etc. and those ads still coming up. There is nothing else installed on these computers except for one business program that has been running for a long time. I told the users that I have no idea how this is occurring and not sure how to prevent it. Microsoft Edge is not used on the computer, no extensions installed. Puzzling. I just cannot find a cause of the ads unless the users there are doing something that I cannot find. These ads have been appearing the for past week. Prior to that time, nothing has been occurring for ads or "features".

We even disconnected some of the computers from Internet/LAN to make sure nothing on the Internet was triggering this behavior. Still had a few ads, but nothing bad.

After reviewing this link, I may use of these registry mods to see if anything changes. I may also restore a few of these systems back to an earlier image and see what happens.

The ads you are seeing in the windows notification tray come from websites using your browsers notification ability, not windows itself.

A lot of bad and malicious sites use this as a way to trick you into thinking you're infected, or give you ads so that you click the notification and are taken to a scam or bad website.

Turn off notifications in your browsers, and the issue will go away. Using an adblocker or extensions such as malwarebytes browser guard will help prevent this behavior.

For more information and examples:


You can also turn off notifications in windows for the browsers here:


The only ads you will see in the notification center from windows are right now the black ops 6 ad and the defender or 365 ads, and you won't see these if you have them turned off under "system > Notifications > additional settings at the bottom > get tips and suggestions when using windows".

Also in addition:

After explaining all the troubleshooting, clean up, scanning, etc. I have done throughout the week for these users, I just found the culprit and so glad that they took pics. The one pic they sent me just gave it away on what may have caused this entire problem. No wonder I could not find anything in the logs, etc. on these Windows computers. They basically infected their own network and somehow I could not find it.

The wireless network had been disabled to keep the network closed. This is just how they are set up for security. Someone there brought their Chromebook in the office, enabled wireless network publicly without any password. They launched a ransomware virus on the Chromebook, which they had to reset, and then this user went back to disable the wireless network. This apparently infected a few of the computers that are in the building that I do not maintain or even touch. These Windows computers are down due to the infection.

WOW! I am so mentally drained and frustrated. This is going to be a costly clean up for them. They thought the ransomware infection did not matter.

Thanks for everyone's feedback, this is what I get for helping another client remotely without knowing the ins-and-outs of their entire operation and network. I had it narrowed down to Windows ads, but there are other problems besides this one.

Nipdawg said:

The wireless network had been disabled to keep the network closed. This is just how they are set up for security. Someone there brought their Chromebook in the office, enabled wireless network publicly without any password. They launched a ransomware virus on the Chromebook, which they had to reset, and then this user went back to disable the wireless network.

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I would love to know how that happened, as chrome OS cannot execute anything.....

Much more likely a windows client got infected or the router /network itself, infecting the dns (dns hijacking or spoofing) and causing all machines to go to a bad page. Or it was a man in the middle attack.

Reading your explanation does not make much sense to me. If they were infected with ransomware in their organization, then multiple other things could have taken place. I would take the network offline, scan all computers, wipe all network firmware devices and reflash with official updated sources getting the file from a computer not on their network of course.

Your rant on this post is very confusing to me. You are blaming ads on windows, and then we come to learn the org has a ransomware attack from a chromebook......which cannot execute attacks like this.

Nipdawg said:

I deal with hundreds of problems per day and seeing the same stupid Microsoft "features" is frustrating enough. Microsoft needs to control their ads and allow the OS be an OS and not a marketing OS.

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Windows does not have the blatant ads you have described. See my earlier post. With the information you have provided, and with all due respect, I think you are out of your depth here and need to call a professional to ensure the devices are clean and the network is clean.

andrew129260 said:

I would love to know how that happened, as chrome OS cannot execute anything.....

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I don't know much about ChromeOS. They are apparently hiding details from me. I am backing away from this remote project because I am not going to get any business from it and the mess would need to get cleaned up locally.

andrew129260 said:

Much more likely a windows client got infected or the router /network itself, infecting the dns (dns hijacking or spoofing) and causing all machines to go to a bad page. Or it was a man in the middle attack.

Reading your explanation does not make much sense to me. If they were infected with ransomware in their organization, then multiple other things could have taken place. I would take the network offline, scan all computers, wipe all network firmware devices and reflash with official updated sources getting the file from a computer not on their network of course.

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I put several recent events together thinking they were all related, however, finding out some were related and the main problem was not related. I cannot correct any network or problem remotely without knowing all the details, whether good or bad. I don't who did what and why, just want to know what exactly happened so I can clean up the message to get them running again.

andrew129260 said:

Your rant on this post is very confusing to me. You are blaming ads on windows, and then we come to learn the org has a ransomware attack from a chromebook......which cannot execute attacks like this.

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The ads were probably coming up from when their network got infected. Up to the time of the infection, no ads were present. Once the ads were coming up, I went through the systems I knew about and could not find anything. These were Windows 11 Pro systems with only one program installed. I could only evaluate of what I could access and see. This is why I hate remote business clean ups when you never had a in-person on-site visit.

Anyway, the ads that they were showing and I could see in the Notifications looks like they were from Windows 11. Eventually I found some Notifications coming from Microsoft Edge. After seeing the ads in New Outlook, File Explorer, and Start Menu along with ads in Microsoft Store, I thought the ads were coming from Windows 11 directly. Everything pointed to Windows 11 ads. I was also told no other computers on the network accessed anything from any other computer, which I found was false. I found mapped network drives in the history.

The previous IT company they used refused to work with them any longer. Based on what I see remotely, I can see why. Each computer had a mapped network drive so they can copy point-of-sale data to them. Each time they would contact their IT contacts, they would disconnect these drives. I don't understand why, but they did.

There is a lot of details that I received where I told them to find someone else. Yes, I may tremendous progress of improvements for them, but I am cutting my loses here. They can go find another IT Expert to see if they want to bother this total disastrous mess.

andrew129260 said:

Windows does not have the blatant ads you have described. See my earlier post. With the information you have provided, and with all due respect, I think you are out of your depth here and need to call a professional to ensure the devices are clean and the network is clean.

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I have been doing this business IT work for over 35+ years and I got greatly blindsided on this project. I contacted the previous IT company and they told me about this company I am helping will make it harder than ever to correct and then blame you. They are apparently known in the area not to help them at all, so they are reaching out of their area for help. I know what needs to happen, but I cannot do it remotely.

This my last remote project work I will ever try without seeing the place in person. I told the job agency about the problems, and they laughed.

Gotcha. That makes much more sense. Trying to handle this all remotely is defiantly a disaster.

Your at the mercy of whatever they are telling you as you cannot see it first hand. That is a nightmare that I too would not want to engage in.

andrew129260 said:

Gotcha. That makes much more sense. Trying to handle this all remotely is defiantly a disaster.

Your at the mercy of whatever they are telling you as you cannot see it first hand. That is a nightmare that I too would not want to engage in.

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Thought I try it and it did not go. :)

Ghot said:

Disable Ads in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you different ways to disable ads showing for your account in Windows 11. Windows 11 includes ads by default in the form of Microsoft promoting its own services and apps. These ads can include fun facts, tips, tricks, recommendations, and suggestions within the UI of...

www.elevenforum.com

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One of the tutorials listed in the link in the post by the Right Honorable Mr @Ghot is this one which works for me in stopping ads and other bull from MS and others etc.


My settings are:

Yep... I disabled all those things as well.

In Edge I use U Block Origin to get rid of unwanted ads.

In the screenshot of the Privacy & security settings panel gotta love the "Let Windows improve Start and search results by tracking app launches". That is a sneaky subterfuge for "Hey we're spying on you".

Disabling browser notifications prevents malware/phishing as well.
I disable Windows suggestions as such (not to mention removing Start, but that is too much for this discussion):