Microsoft appears to be testing a new sort of advertisement within Windows 11’s File Explorer. Florian Beaubois, a Microsoft MVP, and Twitter user found an advertisement in the current Windows 11 preview release encouraging people to check out the Microsoft Editor. While the advertisements may have displayed for certain Windows 11 users, Microsoft claims the appearance was an error.
“This was an experimental banner that was not meant for external distribution and was disabled,” Brandon LeBlanc, senior program manager for Windows, exclaimed.
Image Source – Twitter
While the advertisements were not intended to be tested outside, it is evident that Microsoft is capable of running them inside Windows 11, and the company’s brief comment does not rule out future advertisements in the File Explorer.
This is not the first time Microsoft has included advertisements within File Explorer. In 2017, Microsoft added a huge banner advertisement to the File Explorer in Windows 10 to promote subscription choices for its OneDrive cloud storage service. While the advertisements are easily discarded, they remain an annoyance in an operating system that has historically been ad-free.
Microsoft has been experimenting with advertisements inside Windows for the better part of a decade. It already displays advertisements on the Windows 10 lock screen and Start menu, and there have been numerous instances of obnoxious pop-up advertisements in the taskbar. Numerous built-in Windows 8 apps included advertisements.
Regrettably, Microsoft is not alone in promoting its own services through its operating system and applications. If you purchase a new iPhone, Apple bombards you with offers for Apple Music, Apple Fitness, and iCloud, and we’ve even seen full-screen commercials for Apple TV Plus if you own Apple’s TV hardware. Google will relentlessly bombard you with pop-up advertisements until you succumb and purchase a YouTube Premium subscription.
