Let’s put it this way; when Microsoft announced its plans to start adding features to Windows 10 once again, despite the operating system’s inevitable demise in October 2025, everyone expected slightly different things to see ported over from Windows 11. Sadly, the latest addition to Windows 10 is one of the most annoying changes coming from Windows 11’s Start menu.
Earlier this year, Microsoft introduced a so-called “Account Manager” for Windows 11 that appears on the screen when you click your profile picture on the Start menu. Instead of just showing you buttons for logging out, locking your device or switching profiles, it displays Microsoft 365 ads. All the actually useful buttons are now hidden behind a three-dot submenu (apparently, my 43-inch display does not have enough space to accommodate them). Now, the “Account Manager” is coming to Windows 10 users.
The change was spotted in the latest Windows 10 preview builds from the Beta and Release Preview Channels. It works in the same way as Windows 11, and it is disabled by default for now because the submenu with sign-out and lock buttons does not work.
Didn’t microsoft kill major updates for win10 in 22h2
Just like Windows 10 was announced to be the last Windows version and it was supposed to be a rolling release product.
And then they needed to artificially restrict what hardware Windows runs on to please the OEMs and their computer sales so we got Windows 11, cutting off a lot of recent and still more than capable enough hardware ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
“Well yes, but actually no”
Sam Reich? Did you get a haircut?
Seriously, I’m just munching popcorn with all these MS headlines lately, contentedly using my machine that does everything I want and 0 things more, all without actually having to fight with it for that outcome.
Installing OpenSUSE Tumbleweed on my wife’s laptop as we speak. Stupid thing forcefully installed 11.
🐧
Some advice for anyone who is seriously considering a move away from Windows:
- Set your expectations appropriately. Linux is not a drop-in replacement for Windows. IMHO, it shouldn’t be.
- Some things that you take for granted are not universal. Much like a new language (especially your second one) even the basics are often different.
- There is a lot to learn. If you have the patience and humility to be in kindergarten again, you’ll probably do fine. If you expect to be a master quickly, you’ll probably get frustrated.
- You don’t have to tackle the whole learning curve all at once.
- A few notable Windows programs won’t run on Linux. If you have very rigid and specific software needs, like “Photoshop is the only tool that I can use to make a living”, you might consider running those in a virtual machine, or on a second system, or dual-booting. If that’s too complicated for you, then you probably shouldn’t try to force yourself into Linux. Maybe try again in a few years.
- There is more than one GUI (desktop environment) for Linux. Some look a bit like Windows. Some look more like MacOS. Others look like something you’ve never seen before. You can test drive many of them by booting from a USB “live image”. In case none of them feels quite right, most can be customized. To get started, just pick one, and know that you’re not married to it; you can always switch desktops later, without even reinstalling the OS. Your applications will still run.
- Investigate hardware before leaping into it. Linux supports a great many devices out of the box, and even more with a bit of configuration. If you have the means, you can buy a system pre-packaged for Linux, including drivers, just as most systems are for Windows. If not, chances are that you can still find or build a system that runs it well. Plan ahead.
For reference, there’s a lot of diversity among people running Linux, from software developers to secretaries, from children to octogenarians. I imagine it’s easier for kids, since they don’t have as much to un-learn, but the Grandparents in my family switched to it from Windows and didn’t want to go back. If they can do it, I think it’s fair to say that many others can, too.
This is the most sane run down I’ve seen on Lemmy in regards to Linux. Thank you for this.
I think it’s now overstated how “different” Linux is. I switched to Mint about a year ago and there is basically zero learning curve right out the box.
🐃+🐧 🤓
lol… apparently 4chan has entered the chat.
uses busybox so I can um actually your um actually
These ads are what finally got me to pull the trigger and move to Linux. Arch is great, zero issues to report.
Definitely wouldn’t recommend jumping straight to Arch as a first distro unless you want a steep learning curve and have the time to learn.
As a long time Linux user, thank you M$!
See and my friends give me shit for running KDE, soon they’ll have to click past a Viagra ad to do so.
And people question my decision to disable automatic updates…
I’ll take you one further. I’m on Windows 7. Hasn’t been updated since like 2013.
Unrelated question: What’s your IP address?
Jk
192.168.1.1
Everybody should learn about pihole.
Or pfBlockerng
Pfblocking?
https://www.patreon.com/pfBlockerNG is a addon for pfsense which is a router os for X86/64 machines. If you don’t want to block porn it will run on nearly anything. You can block all dns over tls or https. Many of the list you need can be selected in the gui.
Windows 10 will be my last Windows operating system. It’s been fine and it works well enough. I’ve already started setting up a drive with Linux Mint 22 for use moving forward.
In the same boat. Mint has some growing pains but for mainly web browsing I’ve been enjoying an OS that doesn’t feel like a ad billboard or a data snitch.
if you don’t feel like setting up a vm, use distrosea :] free website that sets it up for you in-browser
Yess yesssss let the linux flow throughhhh youuuuuuu. Manjaro XFCE here. Play with the distros in Oracle Virtual Machines and find the right one for you. Linux desktop is seriously worth the effort. Check out Yakuake as a Quake style drop down terminal to get to hacky stuff. Learn everything about Linux. It’s fun!
my laptop has windows 10, just so i can stream amazon prime since they choke it down to like 320p on linux.
This is not just gonna make me put linux on my laptop, but make me cancel streaming subscriptions too. congrats microsoft. You’re fucking everyone.
Surely you will
Well, I may be a random idiot, but I’m not stupid enough to keep paying for something that doesnt work on not-windows.
So you keep feeling weirdly haughty about it, i guess, you clearly need it for some reason.
I haven’t even used the start menu in so long because Windows 10 always had a shitty one and I really just use my PC for games which I launch from Steam or my desktop (if non steam). If I ever need to open the settings or whatever, I use Windows Key+R and just type out what I want to run.
Is there a way to pre-emptively block this? Something in hosts.txt? Registry?
The very first day I see those ads in my Win10 will be the day I uninstall Win and go Linux.
Why wait?
Didn’t they already put ads in the Windows 10 start menu? Every time I see a fresh Windows 10 install, it’s got candy crush and a bunch of promotional links to Microsoft apps in the windows store (office, Outlook, etc.) in the start menu.
Tbh my biggest gripe with Windows 11 isn’t even the ads, you can disable them or – like I did back when I used Win11 on a spare partition for VR gaming – just install a start menu replacement like startallback. My biggest gripe is that they removed the fullscreen launcher and mobile/touch optimized metro app system (ik windows store apps exist, but they behave like regular windows apps, which is awkward on a tablet when you’re using it without the keyboard cover). I liked that Windows 10 basically kept all the Windows 8 tablet features, but made them optional so that you can have a full desktop experience on a tablet. Now windows 11 just feels kind of poorly designed and clunky on a tablet PC.
I ended up installing ChromeOS on my tablet through Project Brunch just to get a decent, polished-feeling tablet interface (with android apps, which is a huge plus since that’s already a massive library of touch-optimized software). I run NixOS on my main PC, but for the tablet it was either Linux+GNOME (GNOME is the only desktop DE with acceptable touch support imo, especially paired with the cosmic shell extension for automatic window tiling), or ChromeOS, and I tried a bunch of different distros (including open-source chromiumOS distros like FydeOS).
In the end, I liked FydeOS, but ChromeOS through Brunch Framework has extra features I’d rather not live without (like Android phone connectivity), and FydeOS has borked touch support on the OpenFyde releases, so I’d need to use the proprietary Fyde For You builds with specific drivers for the Surface Pro 4, but those cost money after 90 days, and if I’m using a proprietary OS, I might as well pick the free one. If you’ve never used ChromeOS, it’s basically like if stock Google android had a good desktop mode and could (easily/officially) run desktop Linux apps.
