Microsoft is Increasing the Number of Promoted Apps in the Start Menu with the Anniversary Update

When the anniversary update arrives in late July, it will bring with it many new features, updated themes, and now we are learning that it will also include additional promoted apps in the Start menu. Microsoft made this announcement at their WinHec conference and the slides you see in this post come from that event.

In Windows 10 as we know it today, there are currently five promoted apps but as Neowin spotted in the slides from WinHec, Microsoft is bumping that number up to ten. To make room for these additional apps, the company will be reducing their own apps from the Start screen region from 17 to 12.

The company says they are doing this to help promote and introduce the user to the Windows store. If you do not want these apps, they can be uninstalled and for commercial users, they can be blocked with a group policy.

At this time, we do not know what apps will be used in these promoted blocks but I do wonder if Microsoft is leveraging this change to help get large name developers to build apps for its store. We have seen Facebook and many others release new apps and if Microsoft is offering a default slot in the Start menu to these companies, that is a significant point of leverage as these apps will be viewed by millions of users.

What isn’t known at this time is if these apps will appear if a user upgrades from 1511 (November update) to 1607 (Anniversary update). While you would think that Microsoft would not interfere with a user’s menu who is already running Windows 10 and is simply upgrading, the company’s new aggressive stance with marketing its products does leave this question unanswered.

With the launch of Windows 10, Microsoft used this same tactic to pre-load Candy Crush games in the Start menu and seeing that they are increasing their efforts in this area, it must have been a huge success which is why they are dedicating more space to additional apps.

You can view all the slides from the presentation, here.