How to disable the Christmas banner on Windows 11 from ASUS

The other day, Windows 11 users on ASUS computers were faced with an unexpected Christmas banner that caused panic and raised suspicions of malware.

Here's what we know

The banner, which took up a third of the screen and displayed a Christmas wreath with festive lights and an “ESC to exit” button, was associated with the “Christmas.exe” process in Task Manager. Many users mistook it for a virus, especially due to previous cases of Christmas-themed malware. However, it turns out that the banner is part of an ASUS advertising campaign and is integrated into the Armory Crate software that comes pre-installed on some ASUS computers.

Although the banner was not malicious, its poor execution and lack of clear branding led to many complaints. Users have reported application crashes and RAM leaks due to the banner.

How to disable the banner

To completely disable the banner, it is recommended to uninstall the Armory Crate utility through the official uninstaller and disable the Armory Crate utility through BIOS to avoid reinstallation. To do this, on an ASUS computer, open the BIOS by pressing Del or F2 during startup. Then switch to advanced mode by pressing F7, go to the Tools menu, find ASUS Armory Crate and change the “Download and install ARMOURY CRATE app” setting from “Enabled” to “Disabled”. Save and exit BIOS.

Source : windowslatest