Welcome to the Nanny State (Premium)

Remember when all we had to worry about was advertisements in apps? Oh, how young and naïve we were. Microsoft followed up that little Windows 8 innovation by dramatically increasing the scope of advertising in Windows, of course. But it also stole our privacy and added crapware in Windows 10, and it has moved on to endlessly nagging it to use its other products and services in Windows 11. So let’s focus on that.

First, let’s agree on some terms. Put simply, all of this is advertising. I know that’s controversial in some circles and that some will argue that Microsoft’s nudges are helpful, or whatever. But that’s beside the point: what Microsoft is doing is using both carrot and stick to drive you into the one-way, dead-end street that is their broader ecosystem. You won’t remember exactly how you got there, but now you can’t leave.

The reason this is advertising is that it’s not always the right choice for you, but is rather the right choice for Microsoft. That is, sure, you absolutely should make sure that all of the documents and other data files you’re working with on your computer are synced to cloud storage so that they will survive a hardware failure. But that doesn’t mean you have to—or want to—use Microsoft’s OneDrive service for that work. In other words, Windows 11 isn’t an open platform. Dropbox, Box, and Google Drive aren’t given the option to interrupt your flow to advertise their services. Only Microsoft.

OneDrive is the poster child for Microsoft’s in-house advertising and nudges in Windows 11. Indeed, it starts during the Out of Box Experience (OOBE), the wizard you step through when you first bring up a new PC. Depending on which Windows 11 product edition that came with the PC, you are either silently opted in to “backing up” your Desktop, Documents, and Pictures folders to OneDrive (Home edition) or are asked to do so (Pro edition).

Doing so, of course, will increase your use of OneDrive cloud storage, which will lead to further nags down the road to upgrade to some form of Microsoft 365 subscription service for additional storage. This is Microsoft’s ulterior motive: it doesn’t just want that one-time licensing fee for Windows 11. It wants you to pay it money every single month for the rest of your life.

If you have Windows 11 Pro and decline this offer, Microsoft will continuously nag you to reconsider, and it is either impossible or difficult to turn off this nagging. (I’m still researching that bit as it’s accelerated in recent months.) (If you have Windows 11 Home, Gold help you. I would guess that almost no one using that system has any idea that this is even happening in the background and Microsoft will never again prompt you about it. That said, you can of course turn off OneDrive folder sync, or what it calls backup. If you know to look, and then where to look.)

It nags you in two ways.

First, it will put a blue “i” overlay on top of the OneDrive icon in the system tray on the Taskbar. This icon and overlay are both so small that it’s hard to read what the overlay says, and I (understandably) mistook it to be a “!” character instead, which would indicate a problem. Instead, it’s informational—and ad—and when you click on it, the OneDrive window that appears asks you to please set up OneDrive folder backup. You cannot opt out of it from that user interface.

Second, it will put an orange overlay dot on your user account button in the Start button. When you move over this button, it says “Paul Thurrott, you have an important account notification,” so I guess we’ve moved from informational to important. And when you click on that, you’re greeted with yet another reminder to back up your files using OneDrive. You can’t opt out of it here, either. You can just start the backup or click “Remind me later.”

I know. Some of you out there are quietly disagreeing that this is problematic. But let me make a few salient points.

I feel very strongly that everyone should take advantage of some cloud storage service and, as noted above, you should use whatever service you prefer to ensure that none of your important files are ever sitting on a single PC only. I happen to use OneDrive because it integrates nicely with the Windows file system and because I get 1 TB of storage as part of my Microsoft 365 Family subscription. But as I wrote in Don’t Be a Statistic (Premium), I also have my own strategy for achieving my file sync and backup needs, and because of my heavy use of OneDrive, the file storage required by syncing these folders to every PC would be onerous: My Documents folder is using 410 GB of storage and my Pictures folder is using another 400 GB. Syncing those hot messes to each PC I use isn’t just a bad idea, it would be impossible in most cases.

This is a long-winded way of saying that Windows 11’s suggestions that I use OneDrive folder backup are, in my case, bad advice. No, not just bad advice. It’s wrong. And it’s stupid of Microsoft not to know that I am, in fact, extensively using OneDrive already. It’s particularly problematic when I do, in fact, explicitly opt out of this backup by opening OneDrive and disabling it when necessary. So stop nagging me about this.

As bad, Microsoft doesn’t even pretend to treat us like adults and give us some obvious way to opt out of these nagging advertisements. That Start menu-based UI should have a “Never show me this again” link in addition to its “Start backup” and “Remind me later” choices. Obviously.

As noted, there may be ways to turn off this nonsense but, if so, they are well hidden and not obvious. Opt-out needs to occur where the opt-in is requested. Here, again, Microsoft is being purposefully obtuse. If you search the Settings app in Windows 11 for “suggestions,” you will get at least three hits that could be relevant. The top choice, “Get tips, tricks, and suggestions as you use Windows,” opens to the right page (System > Notifications) in the app, but it doesn’t navigate to, or expand, the correct item on that page. So you have to scroll down all the way to the bottom and expand “Additional settings” to find the item (which is selected, oddly) called “Get tips and suggestions when using Windows.” For whatever it’s worth, I just unchecked that item but the orange overly on my user profile picture button in Start remains.

OneDrive is just the tip of the iceberg, of course. Widgets displays the weather forecast on the Taskbar, sometimes, which is nice, but it also sometimes advertises “New games,” which has nothing to do with Widgets and will launch Microsoft Edge no matter what your default browser is and then navigate to some ad-powered Microsoft website. Microsoft Edge is a serial offender that I’ve written about a lot, so there’s no need to revisit that terribleness. You’re sold on Microsoft 365 and Xbox Game Pass in the OOBE. The search bar on the Taskbar will pop-up reminders to use Bing Chat. It just goes on and on. (And it’s not just Windows. Please don’t get me started on Teams.)

This kind of nagging is like getting life advice from a drunk in a bar who can’t keep a steady job and hasn’t had a healthy relationship in years. It lurches forward when it’s least expected or wanted, interrupting you when you’re trying to get work done. It’s the exact opposite of Panos Panay’s promises for Windows 11, a system that is allegedly designed to get out of your way so you can stay in your flow. And it’s an uncomfortable reminder of why you were so eager to move out of your parent’s home as a teenager.

We’re well past the point where we can try to excuse this behavior. It just needs to stop. And as I’ve noted so many times, I would be willing to pay for that benefit, to get a clean, non-naggy version of Windows. But others won’t or can’t, and at the very least, Microsoft needs to give people an obvious way to say no to this nonsense. This isn’t just common sense, it’s obvious.

We shouldn’t have to beg to be treated with dignity.