Microsoft is testing promotions for the free Office web apps being displayed directly in the menu bar for the Windows 10 Wordpad application. As you can imagine, the reaction to this news has been mixed, with some not thinking it's a big deal and others not happy with this approach.

Microsoft provides free stripped-down versions of their Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote Office applications that can be used directly insider a browser. These web versions of the popular Office products were originally launched as Office Online, but are now known as simply Office.

Windows sleuth Rafael Rivera discovered that Microsoft is testing, or planning on testing, the display of 'ads' for the free Office web applications directly in the venerable Windows 10 Wordpad application.

Office web app promotions in Wordpad

(Click to see larger image)

When testing the feature, Rivera noticed that Microsoft was promoting the free Office web applications using 6 different variations that contain slightly different wording.

These different Office promotions are listed below:

Try word online for free. Try Word for free online. Try Word Excel, and PowerPoint for free online. Use Word for free online. Use Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for free online. Try office for free online.

As you can imagine, after tweeting about this discovery there was a wide range of opinions regarding this test.

Some look at it negatively with one comment stating that this test is "Quite sad. This is why people rather stick with Windows 7 and 8." Another comment did not see an issue as "They are suggesting you use a free and better product, there is no harm in that in my opinion."

For those who are not happy with these promotions, the reality is that there is a good chance it will never be released. Microsoft commonly tests new features like this that after hearing negative feedback, decide to skip integrating them into the Release versions of Windows.

BleepingComputer has reached out to Microsoft with questions regarding this promotion, but have not heard back as of yet.