Microsoft has pumped ads into the Windows Start menu and pushed users through setup screens promoting its services. Now it's bringing advertising to the Windows desktop with a Harry Potter promotion in its Bing Wallpaper app. Users of Microsoft’s Bing Wallpaper app took to Reddit and Microsoft’s own Learn site, where users can post questions about Microsoft products and services, to ask why their usual rotation of scenic desktop wallpapers was interrupted Monday by an ad for Harry Potter films. The wallpaper displays a minimalist vector image of the Hogwarts castle from the film adaptations of author J.K. Rowling’s seven-book fantasy series along with text reading “Harry Potter/Fantastic Beasts 11-film collection” and an additional line noting that all eleven movies in the series are “available now.” “Why in the world is my Bing wallpaper today an advertisement for a film collection, not a beautiful landscape or nature photo,” a Microsoft Learn poster identifying himself as Reed Miller said. “Will there be more advertisements, and if so, must I uninstall Bing wallpaper now to prevent them, or is there a way to opt out?” Reddit users similarly expressed dissatisfaction about their usual rotation of photographs being hijacked to advertise a movie collection. “Usually it's animals, landscapes, or architecture,” one poster noted. “Today it's shit.” While both Miller and Reddit commenters complained in part about Rowling’s transition from author of kids’ books about a young boy who grows up with a hidden identity to an anti-transgender activist, one need not lean on the fact that Rowling’s intellectual property is the one being advertised to find dissatisfaction with the move. Plenty of people leaving ratings on the Bing Wallpaper app’s Microsoft Store page since Monday made no mention of Rowling or her politics in their one-star reviews, only noting that they were upset the app had turned into one that delivers desktop ads. “What's next? Immediately uninstalled. Fair warning to everyone else,” one reviewer said. Another pointed out that the settings for Bing Wallpaper now note AI is used to generate some wallpapers served by the app. Others complained that there had to be a better way to monetize the Bing Wallpaper app. This isn’t the first time such a seemingly innocuous app has drawn criticism. As we noted in late 2024, the Bing Wallpaper app was spotted snooping on and decrypting browser cookies. When asked, Microsoft didn’t technically deny it, only telling us at the time that it didn’t peruse and decrypt “all user Edge and Chrome cookies,” with Firefox not getting a mention. Beyond the Bing Wallpaper app, Microsoft has a lengthy history of privacy controversies involving user data – and inserting ads into Windows, including Microsoft Store promotions that landed in the Windows 11 Start menu in 2024. One could argue that the many iterations of cramming Copilot into every corner of Windows in a bid to increase user numbers are tantamount to advertising, too. We reached out to Microsoft to get more info on the latest addition to its in-your-face advertising portfolio, but didn’t immediately hear back. In the meantime, your best bet might be uninstalling the Bing Wallpaper app before it hijacks your wallpaper. ®
