I never really liked the Home page of the Settings app that Microsoft introduced last year in Windows 11. Back then, I described it as half promotion half pointless.
Windows 11 users who open the Settings app see the home page by default. It features a mix of quick settings, which Microsoft calls recommended, account information, and, in some cases, promotions.
These promotions focused on OneDrive cloud storage and Microsoft 365 up until now. One ad unit displays “Try Microsoft 365” to the user, if no Microsoft 365 is detected.
Microsoft 365 is a subscription service that unlocks additional cloud storage and gives users access to the most recent versions of Microsoft Office. A subscription includes other benefits, such as premium templates or a dedicated Microsoft Defender app.
Now it appears that Microsoft is adding another ad unit to the home page. Discovered by Twitter user PhantomOcean3, the new unit promotes the Microsoft Copilot Pro subscription.
Microsoft Copilot is part of Windows. Operating system users may launch it with a click on the Copilot icon on the taskbar or the keyboard shortcut Windows-C. Soon, they may also use the dedicated Copilot key on keyboards of select devices to do so.
Those who do not require Windows Copilot may disable it.
Get Copilot Pro
The new unit is not enabled by default at this time. It was spotted in development builds and it is unclear if and when it lands in stable versions. My guess is that it will land this year in Windows 11, maybe even as part of the upcoming Moment update.
The unit advertises Microsoft Copilot Pro. The subscription gives users priority access to Microsoft’s Copilot AI. It is available for $20 per month in select regions at the time of writing.
Copilot Pro gives users priority access to the AI. Apart from that, it gives users 100 boosts for Designer per day. Designer is an AI image creator and boosts prioritize requests. While boosts are not required to use Designer, using the tool without boosts may take longer.
The Settings home page
The Settings home page has the following sections:
- Recommended Settings — displays recent and commonly used settings.
- Cloud Storage — lists used and available cloud storage, powered by OneDrive.
- Bluetooth devices — manage, add, and remove Bluetooth devices.
- Personalize your device — option to change the color mode and a link to personalization.
- Microsoft 365 — an advert to try Microsoft 365. Subscribed users see options to manage their subscription.
- Microsoft Copilot Pro — an advert for the Copilot Pro subscription.
If you don’t count the Cloud Storage unit as an ad, you get two units on the page. This means that 1/3 of the page is used for advertisement. If you add OneDrive to it, you get 1/2 that is used for ads.
The non-ad units are not that useful. Recommended settings displays dynamic options. While these appear limited, most options are just a click or two away anyway on the system.
Hiding the home page in Settings
Windows users may hide the Windows 11 Settings home page. There is no toggle, though. To hide it, Windows 11 users need to add an entry to the Registry.
Here is how that is done:
- Open the Start Menu.
- Type regedit.exe and press the Enter-key.
- Confirm the UAC prompt.
- Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
- Note: If one of the keys does not exist, create it with a right-click on the previous key and the selection of New > Key. Name it accordingly.
- Right-click on Explorer and select New > String Value.
- Name it SettingsPageVisibility.
- Double-click on the new entry and set hide:home as the value.
- Close the Registry Editor.
- Restart the system.
The home page of the Settings app is gone. Windows 11 opens the System page instead, which it used to in the past.
You may undo the change at any time by deleting the Registry key again.
Closing Words
The idea of a Settings home page is not bad in itself. It could display popular and often used preferences to the user. Customization options could further expand the usefulness of the Settings page.
It seems unlikely that this functionality is introduced in future versions of Windows.
Now You: do you use the home page of the Settings app?