Microsoft is testing ads in the Windows 11 File Explorer

Microsoft has begun testing promotions for some of its other products in the File Explorer app on devices running its latest Windows 11 Insider build.

The new Windows 11 "feature" was discovered by a Windows user and Insider MVP who shared a screenshot of an advertisement notification displayed above the listing of folders and files to the File Explorer, the Windows default file manager.

More on:

*www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-is-testing-ads-in-the-windows-11-file-explorer/

I don't like this timeline.

Another interesting article to give us at least some idea about where this all is headed.

*www.adexchanger.com/online-adverti...dvertising-is-the-companys-newfound-religion/

But that’s going to change, said Rob Wilk, who took over as head of Microsoft Advertising from Rik van der Kooi in January.

Earning $10 billion in a year, as Microsoft Advertising did in 2021, is certainly the sort of thing that makes the C-suite sit up and take notice. From CEO Satya Nadella down through other organizations within Microsoft, including Xbox and LinkedIn, there’s a “newfound religion” when it comes to the advertising opportunity, Wilk said.

AdExchanger: What’s your priority coming into this new job?

ROB WILK: How do we get the market to understand that what we’re doing is beyond search advertising. We have a fast-growing native business, our retail media offering with Promote IQ, we’re doubling down on our SMB business with hundreds of thousands of advertisers – and, of course, we have our pending acquisition of Xandr.

But now that we’ve reached this level of scale – hitting $10 billion in search and news ads – we’re starting to become significant within Microsoft. That $10 billion is bigger than Mattel, bigger than Southwest Airlines and other big standalone companies. It’s bigger than Snapchat and Twitter combined.

And so there’s a newfound commitment I’m feeling from Satya all the way through to our senior leadership team that, hey, if we can build a $10 billion ad business, what else can we do to accelerate that?

Take Google and Facebook: Because we don’t have the same share that they have, our mentality is much more focused on going out and earning every dollar that we get. You do that by setting a high bar on account and on the insights and data we can provide to agencies or to help clients be better marketers.

Linux needs to close the gap between it & Windows ASAP, esp for gaming & ease of use.

Linux is not bad, I have been using it full time for several years now. Just use some stable distro.

Desmond said:
Linux is not bad, I have been using it full time for several years now. Just use some stable distro.

Linus' video on switching to Linux proves to me it still has a long road ahead for ease of use. Best case scenario, 2 years IMO. But I highly doubt it. Simple stuff like installing software is also a bad exp. IF I feel its bad, easy to not recommend it for the general public.

I think everyone has a different experience. Perhaps you should try it yourself and see.

Desmond said:
Linux is not bad, I have been using it full time for several years now. Just use some stable distro.

i back this, i've been hopping distros and finally settled with fedora , @omega44-xt u should try dualbooting(if u have ,then ignore)
I think linux mint would be the place to start
what windows has on extra are softwares like adobe and microsoft office suite , games and nvidias somewhat ignorance towards linux(only nvidia users can testify the current condition)
bottles app seems a promising bet for running them , u can also pass through VM, use alternatives.
gnome , kde, cinnamon are desktops that i would interest u to try.

Well thanks to valve, there has been an incredible strides in linux gaming (steam deck).

But to be totally fair, nobody would spend a 3070 budget to get the performance of a 3060Ti by going linux gaming. That gap can never be closed unless nvidia/amd themselves are interested.

K_akash_i said:
i back this, i've been hopping distros and finally settled with fedora , @omega44-xt u should try dualbooting(if u have ,then ignore)
I think linux mint would be the place to start
what windows has on extra are softwares like adobe and microsoft office suite , games and nvidias somewhat ignorance towards linux(only nvidia users can testify the current condition)
bottles app seems a promising bet for running them , u can also pass through VM, use alternatives.
gnome , kde, cinnamon are desktops that i would interest u to try.

I tried Lubuntu on cousin's laptop last year, that + Linus' video is enough for me to stay away for a few more years. SteamOS is helping games, but ease of use, it's bad. I'll rather use MacOS than Linux. Anyways, Linux is not worth my time for now, but I seriously hope it will be. I'll be stuck with Nvidia GPU for few years.

I get 60 fps in a lot of games. Hitting 60 FPS is more than enough unless you run a 120+ Hz monitor.

omega44-xt said:
I tried Lubuntu on cousin's laptop last year, that + Linus' video is enough for me to stay away for a few more years. SteamOS is helping games, but ease of use, it's bad. I'll rather use MacOS than Linux. Anyways, Linux is not worth my time for now, but I seriously hope it will be. I'll be stuck with Nvidia GPU for few years.

I've watched all of these and I still use Linux. I think Linus is a bit unfair in a lot of his comparisons.

omega44-xt said:
I tried Lubuntu on cousin's laptop last year, that + Linus' video is enough for me to stay away for a few more years. SteamOS is helping games, but ease of use, it's bad. I'll rather use MacOS than Linux. Anyways, Linux is not worth my time for now, but I seriously hope it will be. I'll be stuck with Nvidia GPU for few years.

watchedem all when it came on youtube , Ubuntu is something undesirable IMO (and lubuntu uses lxde/lxqt which is generally a desktop for old devices. hence the experience)
u just bought in an RTX 3070 iirc (i donot gave any gpu so i cant vouch on the experience)
at the same time the OS u experienced is far off from the linux now
try live booting an os like fedora and tell us how far off it is from windows (I've suggested u fedora because it has things almost latest)
if u are able to spare a 100gigs do check this if fedora

if i'm not wrong amd has opensourced its gpu drivers right?

K_akash_i said:
if i'm not wrong amd has opensourced its gpu drivers right?

Yes

K_akash_i said:
if i'm not wrong amd has opensourced its gpu drivers right?

AMD has two drivers: amdgpu which is open source (part of Mesa) and amdgpu-pro which is closed source and has some additional features such as ray tracing. amdgpu is basically upstream of amdgpu-pro so any feature added to amdgpu will eventually get added to amdgpu-pro as well plus some additional features.

In my experience, you don't really need amdgpu-pro unless you are looking to use specific features provided by amdgpu-pro.

Desmond said:
I've watched all of these and I still use Linux. I think Linus is a bit unfair in a lot of his comparisons.

I'll say, Linus' content is mostly for mass audience, hence why, for reviews of PC parts, I prefer Hardware Unboxed or Gamers Nexus, as those are more technical. These days I don't want to waste much time on tinkering OS, hence why even on phones, I don't root anymore & try to avoid pure stock android. For PCs, Win10 is my preference. I can get the features I want on Win11 by tinkering it, but heard it gets broken at times with Win updates, so sticking with Win10.

So, hopefully, linux is better in future in terms of ease of use, so even someone like Linus can recommend it for a lot of people. My dev friends who used to use Linux back in college are all using macOS because it is very convenient. But some amount of showoff is there with Apple for sure.

I understand your reluctance. But then dismissing Linux without trying it is unfair as well IMO. I suggest at least trying it out in dual boot and try to familiarize yourself with it. Try non-gaming activities on Linux and do all the gaming on Windows.

Can we play all PC games in Linux?

Not all but most

*www.protondb.com/

bssunilreddy said:
Can we play all PC games in Linux?

Check your game compatibility level here on ProtonDB. Platinum level is highest. If your game has that tag then you can try any Linux distribution.

My personal philosophy is that any game that I can play on Linux I don't play on Windows. So, I keep Windows only for other games.

Since Apex Legends is now playable on Linux in Proton 7 and the Steam Deck, I think other games will also follow.

Desmond said:
I understand your reluctance. But then dismissing Linux without trying it is unfair as well IMO. I suggest at least trying it out in dual boot and try to familiarize yourself with it. Try non-gaming activities on Linux and do all the gaming on Windows.

Dual-booting on a daily basis is impractical for me. Don't have too much time these days to try everything myself, so do rely on videos like Linus.

Nerevarine said:
Not all but most

*www.protondb.com/

What is this Native, Gold & Platinum means by?

What is best flavor of Linux which resembles Windows 11 or 10?

I used to use Ubuntu around 2009 & 2010 but later stopped using it because I got busy with my married life and my wifey wanted Oracle on top of Windows for her software job.

Sent from my SM-M317F using Tapatalk

Linux is like android, you can install launcher on top to change appearance.

Try Linux Mint, its a community fork of Ubuntu with Cinnamon Desktop environment. It looks pretty similar to windows taskbar.

IMO if you want to try Linux, dont expect everything to be similar to windows. Expect command line fixes for common issues which you might be used to, in Windows by GUI.

Nerevarine said:
Linux is like android, you can install launcher on top to change appearance.

Try Linux Mint, its a community fork of Ubuntu with Cinnamon Desktop environment. It looks pretty similar to windows taskbar.

IMO if you want to try Linux, dont expect everything to be similar to windows. Expect command line fixes for common issues which you might be used to, in Windows by GUI.

Okay will try
Thanks for telling

Sent from my SM-M317F using Tapatalk

bssunilreddy said:
What is this Native, Gold & Platinum means by?

Native means that that game as a native Linux version that was built specifically for Linux. As such the other ratings don't apply since native games don't use a compatibility layer like Proton.

Borked, Silver, Gold and Platinum are ratings for Windows games running on Linux using Proton or other methods. Borked means that the game does not run whatsoever. Silver means that the game runs but with there could be stability issues or it's barely playable. Gold means that the game runs well with some minor tweaks needed. Platinum means that the game just runs out of the box with little to no tweaks.

bssunilreddy said:
What is best flavor of Linux which resembles Windows 11 or 10?

Linux Mint I think is a good starting point for beginners. Are you using Nvidia? It might need some tweaks to run properly on Linux Mint. If you have any issues or questions you can ask here - Linux Discussion Thread

Desmond said:
Native means that that game as a native Linux version that was built specifically for Linux. As such the other ratings don't apply since native games don't use a compatibility layer like Proton.

Borked, Silver, Gold and Platinum are ratings for Windows games running on Linux using Proton or other methods. Borked means that the game does not run whatsoever. Silver means that the game runs but with there could be stability issues or it's barely playable. Gold means that the game runs well with some minor tweaks needed. Platinum means that the game just runs out of the box with little to no tweaks.

Linux Mint I think is a good starting point for beginners. Are you using Nvidia? It might need some tweaks to run properly on Linux Mint. If you have any issues or questions you can ask here - Linux Discussion Thread

No I am running rx6600xt

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Then you should be good. Generally AMD and Intel GPUs have better driver support than Nvidia.

bssunilreddy said:
Okay will try
Thanks for telling

Sent from my SM-M317F using Tapatalk

once u are comfortable with it , u can also customize how it looks and behaves .

K_akash_i said:
once u are comfortable with it , u can also customize how it looks and behaves .

Will try once and then see for customization. I like modding a lot. That's why I always search for browser extensions and Windows Themes as such.

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bssunilreddy said:
I like modding a lot

Then you will like this - r/unixporn - the home for *NIX customization!

For general public to pick up Linux, it needs to be made available out of the box. So if the laptop doesn't come with Linux, people will most likely won't try it. Dual booting Ubuntu on my Dell XPS 15 laptop wasn't straight forward.

I wanted to try PopOs but it refused to recognize ssd partition I created. Also battery backup on Ubuntu on my laptop is poor.

I want to shift to Linux but it ain't easy for me.

Stormbringer said:
For general public to pick up Linux, it needs to be made available out of the box. So if the laptop doesn't come with Linux, people will most likely won't try it. Dual booting Ubuntu on my Dell XPS 15 laptop wasn't straight forward.

I wanted to try PopOs but it refused to recognize ssd partition I created. Also battery backup on Ubuntu on my laptop is poor.

I want to shift to Linux but it ain't easy for me.

could u try something like fedora ? It 'may' last longer, because of wayland session prolly and from videos of framework laptop it seems fedora is suitable for laptops.

K_akash_i said:
could u try something like fedora ? It 'may' last longer, because of wayland session prolly and from videos of framework laptop it seems fedora is suitable for laptops.

Maybe in the future. The point was not about the distro itself, but how installing Linux is not simple(especially dual booting) and in order for the Linux adoption to grow, laptops with linux pre-installed is necessary. Until then people will keep buying laptops with windows and put up with Microsoft's windows shenanigans. very few will try installing linux.

IMO installing Linux is no more harder than installing Windows.

If installing only Linux, then its simple, but if its dual boot then it becomes tricky.

Even dual booting is simple. The only thing you need to keep in mind is to mount the EFI partition as /boot/efi. Most of the popular distros do this automatically if you choose the "install next to windows" option, at least Ubuntu has this option IIRC. Then the installer will automatically detect the Windows partition and add the appropriate entries in GRUB and you will get the option to choose the OS to boot after rebooting.

Some of the "boutique" distros might not do that but then I don't think this is too complex to configure manually. If you have the skill to install Windows, installing Linux is not too complex.

If someone wants to try fedora Dual booting is quite easy , spare the windows partition (Prolly till sda4) , create boot/efi , root(btrfs), swap(optional), home(make home ext4 IMO) after the installation U'd immediately see a list whenever u boot, to switch between without a hassle.
Mint will show u option to install alongside windows though i like the one mentioned above.

If you have enough RAM you generally don't need to make a swap partition and you can keep home as a directory in the root partition.

K_akash_i said:
If someone wants to try fedora Dual booting is quite easy , spare the windows partition (Prolly till sda4) , create boot/efi , root(btrfs), swap(optional), home(make home ext4 IMO) after the installation U'd immediately see a list whenever u boot, to switch between without a hassle.
Mint will show u option to install alongside windows though i like the one mentioned above.

what is root(btrfs)?

root partition with btrfs file system. Its on linux and unix systems. Much better fs than ext4 (and in competition with zfs)

IIRC Fedora uses btrfs as the default filesystem instead of ext4. I might try it myself someday.

Did they expect people to go:

*i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/mobile/000/022/900/704.jpg

I am very glad I am sticking with Windows 10 rather than 11.

^Problem is we need to move to next Windows eventually. Hopefully there is some kind of setting which can enable/disable the ads in explorer.

TheSloth said:
^Problem is we need to move to next Windows eventually. Hopefully there is some kind of setting which can enable/disable the ads in explorer.

There will be or they will make it paid & not paid browsers.
Everything is for making money in the end.

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That is true. Later down the line they will make it subscription based, like other Microsoft services e.g. MS Office. And nothing ever will be same. So either we have to pay money or watch ads.

TheSloth said:
That is true. Later down the line they will make it subscription based, like other Microsoft services e.g. MS Office. And nothing ever will be same. So either we have to pay money or watch ads.

My profile pic is my reaction.

Lets hope by then linux is able to support few more apps. My 3/4th work can be done on linux now, but i hate switching to windows for that 1/4th. So i use vm instead now.

RumbaMon19 said:
Lets hope by then linux is able to support few more apps. My 3/4th work can be done on linux now, but i hate switching to windows for that 1/4th. So i use vm instead now.

You could try this: Looking Glass - Home

Looking Glass is an open source application that allows the use of a KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) configured for VGA PCI Pass-through without an attached physical monitor, keyboard or mouse. This is the final step required to move away from dual booting with other operating systems for legacy programs that require high performance graphics.

Disclaimer: I've never used this, but I have set up single GPU passthrough to a Windows VM on Qemu instead, allowing me to use windows without rebooting Linux and with all the performance of a native install. I think this does the same but in a more simpler manner.

TheSloth said:
^Problem is we need to move to next Windows eventually. Hopefully there is some kind of setting which can enable/disable the ads in explorer.

Yeah this will be an issue in 2-3 years. Let's see what's up. The Linux "Tux" penguin is always waiting for us with open arms (using in my laptops already).

thetechfreak said:
Yeah this will be an issue in 2-3 years. Let's see what's up. The Linux "Tux" penguin is always waiting for us with open arms (using in my laptops already).

cant find any reason to switch to windows 11