This post explains how you can turn off ads and recommended tips on the Windows 11 Start menu for your user account. This feature is new to the Recommended section since Windows 11 build 22635.3495, and was first introduced in the Beta channel.
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The new Start menu in Windows 11 is divided into two sections: one for pinned apps and the other for recommendations. In addition, the The Start menu offers a dedicated view All Apps with alphabet index for faster navigation. Finally, in recent releases, it also allows adding some files to favorites that will appear in between.
The recommendations section shows recently opened files or apps, as well as other items that Windows believes may be helpful to you. Starting in Windows 11 build 22635.3495, it also displays ads for third-party apps and websites.
In the screenshot above, the recommended section of the Start shows an ad for the Opera browser as the first item in the list.
If you aren't happy with seeing such ads, it is easy to disable them. Here are two methods that you can use.
Disable Recommended Tips and Ads in the Start Menu
To turn off ads in the Windows 11 Start menu, do the following.
- Open the Setting app by pressing Win + I.
- Navigate to the Personalization > Start section. You can open this page directly with the
ms-settings:personalization-startms-settings command. - Turn off the Show recommendations for tips, shortcuts, new apps, and more toggle option.
- Now you can close the Settings app. Ads are now disabled.
You are done.
Using the Settings app is a convenient way to disable ads in Windows Start menu. But it is not suitable if you want to customize the OS using some script. For that, a Registry tweak may be more preferable.
- Open the Registry editor app (regedit.exe).
- Navigate to this key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced. - Look for the Start_IrisRecommendations in the right pane and double-click it.
- Change its value data from 1 to 0.
- If the value is missing, right-click the Advanced key in the left folder tree.
- Select New > Dword (32-bit) value and name it Start_IrisRecommendations. Keep its data as 0.
That's it! This will disable ads in the recommended section.
REG files
To save your time, I have created a couple of ready-to-use REG files.
Extract the downloaded ZIP archive to any folder of your choice, and double-click on of the following files.
-
Disable_Recommendations_Ads_in_Start_Recommended.reg- disables all kinds of ads in the Start pane. -
Enable_Recommendations_Ads_in_Start_Recommended.reg- restores the defaults.
For the automation purpose, it is convenient to use a command prompt method for changing the Registry.
Using command prompt
Open Terminal (Win + X > select Terminal) or command prompt (cmd.exe), and or copy-paste one of the following commands:
- Disable ads:
reg add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced /v Start_IrisRecommendations /t RED_DWORD /d 0 /f - Re-enable ads and recommendations:
reg add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced /v Start_IrisRecommendations /t RED_DWORD /d 1 /f
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