Comment by tracker1

I think it's critically important that when arguing on the internet you bring data driven information and not emotions. Although I know for many people, particularly in tech, operating system choice is an extremely subjective, emotional-driven, and personal, almost religious decision-making process.

But I like data. And that's what I'm going to stick with. Your experience is not my experience.

That said, I distinctly remember back in the Windows 98 days (inarguably one of the most highly regarded versions of Windows ever released which had extreme staying power throughout the Windows XP era); they used to automatically include the Channel Bar to the right on the "Active Desktop". This bar included links to Disney, AOL, MSN, MSNBC, among other items. No doubt Disney paid good money to be default installed and opened on every Windows PC of the time.

So it's not like including some level of advertising hasn't been a precedent for 30 or so years.

As a reply to this, because it's important. Searching does indeed bring up ads, however, they're to the right and only if you do not have whatever it is you're searching for installed.

I know this is splitting hairs, but I like data and not emotional driven decisions. When I tap "Start" and search for "World of Warcraft", which is installed on my PC, the very first item is the shortcut to WoW on my PC.

In terms of Start Menu Zones (as I'm calling them), on the Left is the "best Match", which links to WoW on my PC. The next zone beneath that is "Apps", which are the multiple permutations of WoW on my PC, and beneath that is "Search the Web", which offers a few search terms related to WoW. Beneath that is a "Store" link to WoW, which links to the Microsoft Store. The right zone of the Start Menu offers a menu of what I want to do with the app: Open, Run as Administrator, Open File Location, Pin to Start, Pin to Taskbar, or Uninstall.

This is the same behavior on all programs I have installed on the PC: I can type "Steam", same behavior. Discord, same behavior, Signal, same behavior, Battle.Net, same behavior, etc.

Now, for items that are not installed on my PC, for example, Half Life. Since I don't have it on my PC, it immediately wants to only search the web. On the right zone, which on installed apps shows a menu of options, this now shows a mini Bing search window which basically has sponsored content at the top with ebay links to Half Life editions (also holy crap those are expensive).

So for applications not installed on my PC? Yeah, it's showing me some search bing ads. For every application installed on my PC? It's not showing any ads.

From what I'm reading, it seems many people have a workflow that leverages the start menu pretty heavily. My workflow since the early days of XP has never included the start menu. In Windows XP, I used the Quick Launch Bar and always had a 2nd row of icons above my taskbar for which I used to open apps. When Microsoft changed this, I simply pin everything to the taskbar instead and use that. The only time I use the start menu to search and load something is usually if I want to CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER to run whatever that is as Administrator. And that workflow has never once "tricked" me into loading any ads, websites, bing searches, or anything. It has always, for over a decade including on Windows 11 25H2 done exactly what I was expecting every single time.

So perhaps our workflows differ for which this is an annoyance for you, but I cannot replicate your specific problem that you mentioned.