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Windows 11 users, watch out - you’re in for an upgrade you can’t ignore thanks to mandatory adverts
Microsoft seems intent on making ads disguised as recommendations a fact of life in Windows 11, and the tech giant has apparently begun testing promotional recommendation pages that take up your whole screen, urging users to install Edge and other services - similar to the page you see when you first set up your device or install Windows 11.
Thinking back, I recall a few times when this screen appeared on my own Windows 11 PC after an update, and it caught me off guard as my PC is already set up to my liking. Like myself, some users would be greeted with “Let’s finish setting up your PC” automatically after a Windows Update had been installed. Before this, this sort of notification might appear if you bought a PC and set it up for the first time, but now it looks like anyone already up and running could also see it.
The new notification screens were spotted by Windows Latest following Microsoft’s monthly Patch Tuesday update in April 2024. As shown in a screenshot provided in Windows Latest’s report, the notification screen explains that the ‘set-up’ process will involve backing up your files using OneDrive, restoring “Microsoft recommended settings” (read: setting Edge as your default browser), backing up your phone on your PC, setting up Windows Hello, as well as getting a Microsoft 365 subscription, and turning on Phone Link between your phone and PC.
You are then given two options, neither of which is to opt out of the notification if you’re not interested. You can choose to “Continue” or select “Remind me in 3 days,” and the pop-ups will eventually return. Windows Latest tried the ‘Continue’ option, which led to a “Let’s customize your experience” page which prompts users to customize their Start menu’s ‘Recommended’ section. As shown in a provided screenshot, users would be given some control over the apps that appear in this section.
If you decide not to make any adjustments you’ll be guided to a page with the heading “Use recommended browser settings.” The top option, not by coincidence, is Microsoft Edge - Windows 11’s default browser. This is accompanied by Bing as the default search engine, which again no surprise. Enabling these also pins the Edge icon to the taskbar and creates a desktop icon (if you’ve removed these). Luckily, if you’re not interested in using Microsoft’s web browser and search engine, you can click on “Don’t update your settings,” (which sounds like you’re getting left behind), and you can keep your previous settings.
This isn’t the first of Microsoft’s heavy-handed attempts to get people to use its software and services, and not the first to be met with distaste from users. As Windows Latest points out, Edge already comes preinstalled, and it’s difficult to remove for users running Windows 11 outside of Europe.
If you make it through all of these option screens and have any patience left, you’ll be met with more promotional pages for other Microsoft services, like the offer to try Microsoft 365 Family with a free trial. You could forgo this and subscribe to Microsoft 365 Basic, which includes ad-free OneDrive and Outlook, along with 100GB of cloud storage. In the screenshot that Windows Latest includes, no prices are stated - just a ‘Continue’ button. After this page, users are urged to set up Microsoft’s Phone Link app, which works in a similar way to Apple’s AirDrop feature, and allows you to access data on a linked Android phone on your PC.
Each page does at least have an option to skip that particular step and finish the PC setup process, but this is strange wording, because as I mentioned earlier when I saw the notification, and as Windows Latest stated while documenting this process, our PCs were already set up to our liking.
This has been happening in parallel with Microsoft adding ads disguised as recommendations in the Start menu and experimenting with adding Xbox Game Pass ads on the Settings page. I don’t like this direction for Microsoft, and if it’s not careful, it could end up annoying users rather than encouraging them to try out the software. We live in a time when people’s attention spans can be short, but frustrations and annoyance can live in people’s minds for a pretty long time.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE...- Microsoft targets another corner of Windows 11 with – you guessed it – adverts, and we’re getting a bit fed up with this
- Microsoft could add yet another advert into Windows 11 - and users are running out of patience
- Bad news, Windows 11 users: ads are coming to the Start menu, but there’s something you can do about it
OneDrive finally catches up to Google Drive and iCloud with an offline mode - here's how to set it up
Microsoft OneDrive has finally introduced a feature long considered a staple of Google Drive and iCloud: an offline mode. The mode will be rolled out to students and professionals from today onwards, allowing users to save and edit work whether they have an internet connection or not.
Offline mode for the web version of OneDrive will now let you open your files in the various sections of the program, like your shared folder and meeting views, as well as edit your documents, rename them, and sort them - all without needing an internet connection.
All these changes will be ‘saved’ offline and implemented once you regain internet connectivity with your changes synced to the cloud. Files will be marked as ‘available offline’ as they are in Google Drive.
How to set it upIf you want to use the new offline mode for OneDrive, you’ll need to install the OneDrive app on your Windows or Mac device. Once you’ve done that, you need to head over to OneDrive on your web browser of choice.
You should be prompted to complete the one-time setup for offline mode, and voila! You’re all set! You should bear in mind that there are limitations on what you can and cannot do with offline mode at present. As MSPoweruser reports, offline mode only includes support if you have 250,000 files or fewer - hopefully, you do! - and the feature is currently only supported for OneDrive for work and school (although a wider rollout is presumably in the works).
While long overdue, this is a great chance for Onedrive users who have to work on the go and make last-minute changes to work, and it helps take the stress off those unfortunate times when your Wi-Fi crashes and you worry about losing all your progress! Hopefully, this will tempt more people to try the file management program - now that it’s finally up to speed with basically every other alternative.
You might also like...Windows 11 fears over watermark for PCs that don’t meet AI Explorer requirements are unfounded, leaker clarifies
Windows 11’s next big feature is rumored to be AI Explorer – indeed, it’s strongly rumored – and there’s been some controversy stirred up over how this might be implemented in the OS recently.
This was caused by a recent post on X (formerly Twitter) from well-known Microsoft leaker Albacore, who dug up clues in Windows 11 code that suggest AI Explorer checks the PC’s system components and warns if they don’t meet the requirements for the AI feature.
Some folks took this as a hint that maybe Microsoft could put a watermark in Windows 11 somewhere to enact this warning, but Albacore just tweeted again to clarify that this definitely won’t be the case.
Clearing up a few things ❗1. These are requirements as of build 26100.1, MS can change them later2. Warnings displayed if your system doesn't meet them are purely within AIX, no OS-wide nag3. AIX is AI Explorer, NOT AI File Explorer! Completely separate app, not a replacement https://t.co/XmnjzCYSOYApril 28, 2024
See moreAs you can see, the leaker clearly states that any warning about the system not hitting the necessary requirements would be purely placed within the AI Explorer interface itself. This means you’d open the AI Explorer app (it will be a standalone app, not to be confused with File Explorer), and it’d just present you with that info (“you can’t run this” essentially).
As Albacore says, there’d be no OS-wide nag flagging this up, such as a watermark or other banner elsewhere in the broader Windows 11 interface. This would just be confined to the AI Explorer app, so it wouldn’t bother you if you never went near it.
Analysis: Exploring an ARM-first strategy?A further reminder Albacore provides here is that the requirements themselves for AI Explorer – which are, according to the info the leaker previously dug up, an insistence on 16GB of system RAM and, more controversially, an ARM CPU – could change.
That is, of course, something we pointed out back at the time when we reported on this. Not only are these requirements just in preview builds of Windows 11, but they’re tucked away in testing to boot. They could easily be altered later in the year when Windows 11 24H2 finally arrives with AI Explorer on board. (If the rumors are right – indeed, we don’t know for sure that will happen even. Microsoft could delay the implementation, after all, if AI Explorer isn’t working well enough by the time 24H2 rolls around).
Mind you, we can see why AI Explorer might have to be ARM-only to begin with – mainly because it leverages a powerful NPU (to presumably be responsive and nippy enough), and only Snapdragon X chips will have that to begin with. Intel Lunar Lake and AMD Strix Point mobile CPUs with equally beefy NPUs won’t be too far behind, mind you, and at that point, Microsoft will presumably open up AI Explorer more – if this is the path it takes in the first place.
It's not unthinkable that Microsoft might want to use AI Explorer to help shift units of its incoming Surface devices for consumers – running ARM (Snapdragon X) chips – either, at least to begin with. After all, Surface sales have been lackluster of late, and this could be a good way of firing up some enthusiasm for the range again, at least for a short time.
Yes, there are a lot of ifs and buts here, which is why we always advise a good dollop of caution with any leak. It’s good to hear the clarification that any AI Explorer warning won’t be a system-wide nag, though, even if we didn’t believe Microsoft would go that far in the first place – though some folks did, or at least theorized about that possibility.
You might also like...Google I/O 2024: the dates, timings and everything we're expecting to see
Google I/O 2024 is kicking off very soon – so if you want a glimpse of all the new treats that are coming to Google's many software platforms (plus the odd bit of future-gazing vaporware) it'll be well worth tuning in.
The big day is set for Tuesday, May 14 at 10am PST (1pm ET / 6pm BST) and will continue into the following day. The keynote will be hosted by CEO Sundar Pichai at the Shoreline Amphitheater up in Mountain View, California. It’ll be broadcast in front of a live studio audience, and of course everyone will be able to watch the event as it unfolds via livestream. For a beat-by-beat breakdown of the keynote make sure to follow our Google I/O live blog.
No one knows exactly what will be revealed at Google I/O 2024 and the rumor mill has been uncharacteristically quiet. The likelihood is that AI, and in particular Google Gemini, will be the star of the show – particularly as OpenAI is hosting an event the day before on May 13.
But we can also expect to hear lots of Android 15, plus demos on new features coming to the likes of Google Maps, Google Lens, Google Photos and more. Here's how to tune into Google I/O 2024 and everything we're expecting to see...
Cut to the chase- What is it? Google's big annual software show
- When is it? May 14
On March 15, Google announced that Goole I/O 2024 would take place on Tuesday, May 14 at 10am PST (1pm ET / 6pm BST) and continue into the following day.
To hear all of the big software announcements, from Google Gemini to Android 15, you can tune into the keynote on YouTube – we've embedded the placeholder video below.
The rest of the show will be live addresses and demos for Google's developers, for everything from ChromeOS to in-car experiences, but if you're not a registered attendee you'll also be able to watch these videos after the event.
Online registration for the event is open and free for everyone. It lets you stay up-to-date on the schedule and what content will show up. Be aware that registering will require you to make a developer profile for Google, though.
What to expect at Google I/O 2024 Big Gemini updatesThe most obvious pick here is artificial intelligence. Even though we’re only five months in, 2024 has been a big year for Google AI.
We saw the launch of the Gemini models, the brand’s very own LLM, as well as the rebranding of several other AIs under the Gemini moniker. Expect to see multiple demonstrations of what the tech will be able do in the near future. We could also find out more information on the mysterious Gemma, which is slated to be the open-source version of big brother Gemini.
It’s possible Pichar, or one of the hosts, will talk about improving their AI’s performance. If you’re not aware, Gemini has had some issues lately regarding, shall we say, inaccurate depictions of ethnic groups. Plus, hallucinations remain a problem.
We've already seen the arrival of the Google Pixel 8a, which landed last week on the same day as the new Apple iPad Pro (2024) and iPad Air 6 – nice timing, Google.
That means the main smartphone news will likely be a full bow for Android 15. Mid-February saw the launch of the Android 15 developer preview, giving the world its first opportunity to get its hands on the upcoming OS.
We now know a lot more about Android 15, from its design features like a revamped status bar to the potential for a super-charged dark mode that forces all apps to support it.
But there's a lot more to learn about the new operating system, so if you want a taster of what's coming to your phone it'll be worth tuning in – the final version of Android 15 likely won't land until somewhere between August and October.
What else could launch?We're almost certain to see new AI developments and Android 15 at Google I/O 2024, but elsewhere we're very much in speculation territory.
For instance, we could see the reveal of new hardware like the Pixel Watch 3, but don’t hold your breath. As our sister site Tom's Guide points out, the Pixel Watch 2 wasn’t announced at I/O 2023; it was instead unveiled during the Made By Google event in October.
The same goes for the Pixel Tablet 2. The company is probably holding onto that for another day. If anything, I/O 2024 will feature smaller changes to other Google products. New Workspace tools, new Android 15 features, things of that nature. Nothing too crazy. It’s going to be Gemini’s day in the sun.
There's still two month away. In the meantime, check out TechRadar's list of the best Pixel phones for 2024.
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