Solved Any way to remove ads in Sign Out dialog?

As a long-time Windows 10 user moving to Windows 11 (came with new laptop), the first thing I noticed was how janky a lot of things are compared to previous versions. I liked that the interface was more modern and consistent, but IMHO they took a step back with all the ads causing that jankiness.

I managed to follow the guides on here to disable most of the ads, but there are two that's quite annoying: the OneDrive and Office 365 ads that load after a short delay when you select Start / Sign Out. Since they often load after a short delay, you see the dialog shift ever so slightly, which after awhile gets to be an eyesore.

Anyone figure a way to get rid of these ads?

Hi @10basetom and welcome to Elevenforum.

To get rid of those annoying ads the following worked for me and hopefully will help you.
NB: The settings below worked on two computers both using Windows 11 Pro 24H2 26100.2605

1. Open the Settings applet in Windows 11 (Winkey + i)
2. Navigate to Privacy & Security > General and change the toggles to suit. These are the settings I use.



3. Go back to the Settings home screen and navigate to Personalization > Lock screen
4. To reveal the setting you need to change, select your own picture (this gets rid of Windows Spotlight). See screenshot below.
5. Untick the Get fun facts, tips, tricks and more on your lock screen box.



5. [OPTIONAL] To get rid of the Widgets app and functions follow this tutorial.



From memory I think I completely got rid of Widgets by uninstalling them using Revo Uninstaller.

Hopefully this is useful.

@Marcus Vinicus thanks for the guidelines. I have all of these toggled off already, but these two ads remain:



Have you found a way to get rid of these, too?

10basetom said:

@Marcus Vinicus thanks for the guidelines. I have all of these toggled off already, but these two ads remain:

View attachment 120593

Have you found a way to get rid of these, too?

Click to expand...

thats not an add. thats "account manager" that they implemented. its because you're signed in with a microsoft account. if you are seeing any ads there that are not in your screenshot, they would have been notification badges

10basetom said:

@Marcus Vinicus thanks for the guidelines. I have all of these toggled off already, but these two ads remain:

View attachment 120593

Have you found a way to get rid of these, too?

Click to expand...

No, I haven't, and neither does anyone else as far as I can tell. There are multiple threads over at the Microsoft Answers Forum and no one over there has the answer.
As I'm sure you're aware, MS have got very sneaky and cunning by NOT putting all the settings for this sort of stuff in the same place. Instead, they've scattered the relevant settings all over the place.

its because it is a microsoft account. was implemented in the September 2024 update. that cannot be removed unless you use a local account. you can, however, use alternate methods...

replaces start menu:
StartAllBack
Start11
OpenShell
WindHawk

if all you want to modify is the start menu, i recommend windhawk for that. can keep the actual windows 11 start menu but alter the look of it

Thank you for the advice, @dacrone . I don't mind OneDrive and Office 365 being there as long as they don't cause the signout dialog to shift (since they often load a tiny bit after) every time I sign out.

After some tweaking much like @dacrone has done, I've also used Windows O+O ShutUp10++
which works quite well. I also use Spybot Anti-Beacon Free.
I do not use One-Drive at all, and save nothing outside my own PCs or network. Instead multiple drives and NAS.

O&O ShutUp10++: Free antispy tool for Windows 10 and 11​

www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10

Safer-Networking Spybot Anti-Beacon
www.safer-networking.org/products/spybot-anti-beacon/