Windows 10: Windows 11 is displaying a pop-up to promote the Backup app

Microsoft is displaying another nagging pop-up in Windows 11. This time, it promotes the Windows Backup app.

The app debuted last year for Windows 10 and 11, to help users back up their data. It does not include a complete backup of your system, instead Windows Backup makes a copy of your important files and folders (Documents, Desktop, Pictures, Videos), your settings, and credentials. The problem with it is that it relies on OneDrive’s cloud storage, and as you may know, free Microsoft accounts are limited to 5 GB of storage. Users can run out of space rather quickly if they store a lot of files in the aforementioned directories. Microsoft recently made a change to the initial setup of Windows 11, which enables OneDrive folder back up by default, this also poses a similar problem, i.e. you could run out of storage space, unless you upgrade to a premium plan which starts at $1.99 per month.

Windows 11 is displaying another annoying pop-up asking users to use Windows Backup


Now, Microsoft has begun displaying a pop-up to promote Windows Backup. The nag-screen, which was spotted by Windows Latest, is a server-side change. The message warns the user that "Your PC is not fully backed up", and the wording below it says "Backup is not turned on for Credentials and Folders. Back up now to save them if something happens to your PC". The pop-up has a button to "Back up now", and another to "Dismiss" the warning.

Considering that Windows Backup saves a limited amount of user data, i.e., your local folders are not backed up, the warning about backing up your PC is actually incorrect. This makes the pop-ups even more annoying. Windows Latest says that dismissing the notification will disable the pop-up for a few weeks, but the pop-up could reappear if you disable some Settings.

TechRadar suggested that Microsoft should consider making a Promo Center in Windows 11, to highlight the features and options that a user may have not enabled, such as the Windows Backup app. That's a good idea, limiting all the ads to a specific app that you can access if you want to would be a great improvement, instead of these pop-ups that are shoved in your face. That said, it is highly unlikely that it will happen. If anything, we can expect even more ads, because that is sadly what Microsoft cares about these days.

There have been several other ads in Windows over the past year. Windows 10 users ran into full-screen pop-up messages which prompted them to upgrade them to Windows 11. And then there were the Bing pop-up ads that appeared in Google Chrome. I have lost count of the number of times Microsoft has promoted Edge, Bing, OneDrive, in other areas of Windows 11. You may run into ads in the Start Menu, Settings app, and File Explorer. Did you know that the Microsoft Weather app shows ads too? Microsoft needs to stop this nonsense and focus on improving Windows 11. You don't see Apple pushing its products aggressively on macOS, do you? That's how you treat your users, it's their computer, not your billboard to display ads.

If you want to back up your PC, you can use free apps like Veeam Agent, Rescuezilla, or Macrium Reflect Free, and save the data to your external hard drive.

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