News Windows 11 will reportedly display a watermark if your PC does not support AI requirements

[tamalero]

Issue: Microsoft displays ads in the start menu!!!
Solution: Untick display suggestions and ads in Settings.

Issue: Microsoft displays watermarks on insider builds if you can't use those AI features!!!
Solution: Don't use an insider build.


I swear there are so few tech sites that aren't trying to sensationalize what are either minor annoyances others already do or are not actual problems people who aren't voluntarily opting into testing aren't affected by, though most of those sites are owned by Future PLC so they're probably being told to. If they, including TH, made this big of a stink about things which are actual issues, like automatically store opening ads in mobile apps or ads with 1x1 pixel sized close buttons or Windows computers shipping with 8GB or under RAM or quad core 2+2 core CPUs or tiny amounts of storage or phones with 128GB storage or any other thing that's ACTUALLY A PROBLEM maybe actual issues would be fixed.

Bet you in short time one of THs "deal writers" posts a "deal" on a low spec computer and frames it as a can't miss by the end of the week, and one of their "freelance writers" posts something else bashing Microsoft for something else that's a non issue, like the Windows Store failing to update apps for some reason, or Microsoft removing Teams Classic support in a couple of months and putting prompts for users who can't use the new Teams to upgrade their system.

Oh, here's one, post an article about Microsoft SwiftKey insisting autocorrect use "thr" instead of "the", or why the Microsoft 365 app tells me I have notifications when I have none, or why Microsoft Outlook says I have 20 unread emails in the notification sorn counter but I have none. But don't by all means mention anything positive, like Microsoft adding a 50GB per month VPN to Microsoft 365, or Microsoft and Google making it easier to use Microsoft 365 on Chromebooks.

Does unticking REALLY removes the ads?
Because by experience in every other platform anywhere else and even on older windows products, these only will give you generic ads and not "personalized" ones.
Aka you cannot turn off ads.

 

[infinatis12]

So more bloatware adds and AI I already run out of ram due to all the useless junk microsoft added to windows guess I should upgrade to 32GB of ram from 16GB....

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

I feel like people are jumping the gun wayyyyyyyyyy too ahead of themselves here. AI is just in its' infancy. It's not a proven technology yet. It's far from perfect. It should be an optional feature on new PCs for the time being, not a mandatory one. This is getting a bit ridiculous here.

Well said!

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

I sure hope that doesn’t happen. My 7700x (which is plenty fast for my needs) doesn’t have an NPU. I honestly don’t care about AI in its current state. I just have no use for it.

I'm sure there will be add-in cards available which can compete with the discrete NPU embedded in processor.

There will be huge market for this.

 

[sadsteve]

Realllly want Linux to pop off loads more so MS starts to respect users again...
"don't fix what isnt broken" is a saying for a reason.

Yes, like the taskbar! When I got my first wide screen monitor the first thing I did with the task bar was move it to the left side of the screen. Vertical screen space became more important to my work than horizontal space.

At this point, I pretty much only keep a Windows VM around for games that won't work under linux, TurboTax and the occasional photo editing session (I just really dislike GImp!).

 

[subspruce]

ARM64 CPU
16GiB of RAM
225GiB system drive (total, not free space)
Snapdragon X Elite NPU (HWID QCOM0D0A)

wonder how much Qualcomm paid in order for this to become practically a Snapdragon X-series exclusive.

 

[CmdrShepard]

Issue: Microsoft displays ads in the start menu!!!
Solution: Untick display suggestions and ads in Settings.

That's not a solution because it is opt-out, not opt-in.

In other words, by the time you get to disable that, it has already sent your data to advertisers to show you "recommended" content.

Issue: Microsoft displays watermarks on insider builds if you can't use those AI features!!!
Solution: Don't use an insider build.

And what would have been the solution if they decided to keep it in the next release build?

... or Microsoft removing Teams Classic support in a couple of months and putting prompts for users who can't use the new Teams to upgrade their system.

Yeah, businesses are really going to upgrade their fleets of hundreds of workstations right away because of Teams change.

But don't by all means mention anything positive, like Microsoft adding a 50GB per month VPN to Microsoft 365, or Microsoft and Google making it easier to use Microsoft 365 on Chromebooks.

Maybe because nobody will ever use a VPN offered by the company who has close ties to FBI and NSA? Also, who in their right mind is using Chromebooks except in an educational setting? And how is hooking students on Microsoft apps and M365 subscriptions a good thing?

Inquiring minds want to know.

 

[Colif]

And how is hooking students on Microsoft apps and M365 subscriptions a good thing?

people knowing how office works will help them in an work space where Microsoft Office is so dominant still. Very few offices use google docs.

whats this about a VPN on Office 365? All I can find is azure and its not for consumers.

 

[Red_Frog]

Oh sweet, AI in my file manager. I always wanted my file manager to run even slower.

 

[CmdrShepard]

people knowing how office works will help them in an work space where Microsoft Office is so dominant still.

And if we keep hooking youth up to MS Office, it's going to stay that way.

There's absolutely no reason not to teach them general concepts of computing (how to understand user interfaces and find their way around any document editing app) instead of teaching them to use MS Office specifically.

 

[subspruce]

There's absolutely no reason not to teach them general concepts of computing (how to understand user interfaces and find their way around any document editing app) instead of teaching them to use MS Office specifically.

No reason except for money from Microsoft.

 

[35below0]

Does unticking REALLY removes the ads?
Because by experience in every other platform anywhere else and even on older windows products, these only will give you generic ads and not "personalized" ones.
Aka you cannot turn off ads.

Well, i haven't experienced this ad infestation but... since i installed Win 11 a few months ago and unticked all the news, suggestions and other rubbish, i have not seen any ads.
Show recommendations for tips, shortcuts, new apps and more is not even unticked. Although the News and interests widget has been disabled.

I'm pretty sure i unticked and disabled every annoying or ad related feature everywhere i could find it. It's hard to say for sure because they're scattered all over the place.
This seems to be the place to start:

https://imgur.com/Q45uLfD

View: https://i.imgur.com/Q45uLfD.png

It's usually possible to disable nonsense. This will probably be the same, as i said i don't know yet.

 

[td47]

Issue: Microsoft displays ads in the start menu!!!
Solution: Untick display suggestions and ads in Settings.

Issue: Microsoft displays watermarks on insider builds if you can't use those AI features!!!
Solution: Don't use an insider build.


I swear there are so few tech sites that aren't trying to sensationalize what are either minor annoyances others already do or are not actual problems people who aren't voluntarily opting into testing aren't affected by, though most of those sites are owned by Future PLC so they're probably being told to. If they, including TH, made this big of a stink about things which are actual issues, like automatically store opening ads in mobile apps or ads with 1x1 pixel sized close buttons or Windows computers shipping with 8GB or under RAM or quad core 2+2 core CPUs or tiny amounts of storage or phones with 128GB storage or any other thing that's ACTUALLY A PROBLEM maybe actual issues would be fixed.

Bet you in short time one of THs "deal writers" posts a "deal" on a low spec computer and frames it as a can't miss by the end of the week, and one of their "freelance writers" posts something else bashing Microsoft for something else that's a non issue, like the Windows Store failing to update apps for some reason, or Microsoft removing Teams Classic support in a couple of months and putting prompts for users who can't use the new Teams to upgrade their system.

Oh, here's one, post an article about Microsoft SwiftKey insisting autocorrect use "thr" instead of "the", or why the Microsoft 365 app tells me I have notifications when I have none, or why Microsoft Outlook says I have 20 unread emails in the notification sorn counter but I have none. But don't by all means mention anything positive, like Microsoft adding a 50GB per month VPN to Microsoft 365, or Microsoft and Google making it easier to use Microsoft 365 on Chromebooks.

Excellent post! TH and ZDNET seem to be much worse these days. The attempt to sensationalize and monetize many forums has made them a pain to use most times.