Microsoft finally fixes one frustrating Windows 11 pop-up – just as a more irritating one arrives to take its place

Windows 11 users are seeing a positive change, but also a less-welcome one
The good news is the ‘second-chance out-of-box experience’ nag has been streamlined considerably
The bad news is there’s a new nag pop-up in the Start menu that pushes you towards taking out a OneDrive subscription

Microsoft has tidied up one annoyance with Windows 11, but sadly appears to have introduced another – and more vexing – irritation in its place.

Let’s start with the good news here, which Neowin flagged up and involves the ‘second-chance out-of-box experience’ (SCOOBE for short). That’s fancy-talk for a nag screen that appears after booting to the desktop, trying to get you to configure elements of Windows 11 that you didn’t bother with when setting up your PC originally.

Setting up your Windows PC is known as the out-of-box experience (OOBE), as in you just got the device out of the box and turned it on – so this panel is essentially pushing this stuff on you again, in the hopes you might use the Windows Backup app, for instance (or switch to Edge).

Now, as it exists currently, this SCOOBE nagging is a multi-panel affair that you have to click through (there are three panels, if my memory serves correctly).

However, in a recent preview release in the Dev channel for Windows 11 (build 26200.5722), Microsoft has changed the SCOOBE so it’s just a single panel, and you can dismiss it with one click.

At least now when it appears – and if you leave parts of Windows 11 setup unfinished it’ll keep popping up every few months or so – it’ll be more painless to swat aside.

So, that’s something (vaguely) positive – but unfortunately Microsoft appears to have introduced a new nag in its place.

Windows Latest noticed the new, more annoying, addition that has arrived in the Start menu of Windows 11 and consists of a pop-up that states: ‘Action advised – back up your PC’.

Underneath that is some spiel about backing up your files, settings and so forth in the cloud, and if you click on the ‘Continue’ prompt Microsoft provides you’ll be whisked off to Windows Backup. (And that backup app is facilitated by OneDrive – and with the low amount of free space included with Microsoft’s cloud storage service, you’ll almost certainly need a subscription, which is the crux of this prompt in terms of selling you something).

Analysis: SCOOBE Dooby don’t

Back view of a man using a laptop with Windows 11's Microsoft Store app open — (Image credit: Foxy burrow / Shutterstock / Microsoft)

So, while this Start menu addition is a warning on the face of it, really it’s just a way of trying to get you to take out a subscription with Microsoft. And while this could be a useful prompt to remind some people they need to back up their files, the problem is that others may well have already sorted out a backup via another app (or gone elsewhere in the cloud) – but if they’ve not used Microsoft’s official channel, then they’re going to get nagged to do so.

As Windows Latest makes clear, these prompts will likely keep appearing periodically – like the SCOOBE – and there’s no way you can turn them off. That’s because Microsoft has flagged this Windows Backup nag as a ‘required’ prompt, so it can’t be avoided, unlike the SCOOBE, which you can actually switch off. (You can do so in Settings > System > Notifications > Additional Settings).

In my book, there should be no such thing as compulsory nags, and if you want to use Windows 11 without being pestered by a single pop-up along these lines, you should be able to tick a box to that effect. Interestingly, Windows Latest observes that with a test Windows 11 installation using an EU region, this alert didn’t appear in the Start menu – so this change may not happen in Europe due to its data regulations (which are proving quite a boon in some ways).

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Microsoft finally fixes one frustrating Windows 11 pop-up – just as a more irritating one arrives to take its place