Windows Recall is secretly installed and enabled on non-Copilot+PCs (Privacy Nightmare)

In a few years they'll charge you monthly for the priviledge of using/knowing what it collected on you.

Pi-hole can block microsoft telemetry domains, just need to keep the blocklists up to date, and flush the Recall cache every day.

I wonder who the 0.5 partner is...

Even if all the processing remained on my devices, I still wouldn't want or trust it. Microsoft could change that policy at any time, claim something like my logging in to my local account constituted agreeing to their new terms, and expose screenshots of my password manager in an unsecured public data store.

Fuck Windows Recall, and fuck Microsoft generally for being so fucking awful to their customers but mainly fuck them for forcing me to finally make good on my threat to switch to Linux. I've been using Windows for over thirty years and switching off their spyware for ten, but this is the final straw.

No, there’s a bigger context that you’re not considering: enterprise IT orgs in privacy-sensitive/confidential domains.

This whole feature is an absolute non-starter in biotech, defense, finance, and a bunch of other industries. It’s an infosec nightmare. Legal teams will categorically refuse to allow W11 to be installed simply due to the legal jeopardy it would put their own orgs in, since it implicitly trusts MS with who the fuck knows how much data exactly.

I continue to be shocked and baffled that MS isn’t taking their stance on this product as an “always-on” thing back to the drawing board.

Nah. Even if it's local, I'll burn my CPU cycles on what I want to, thanks. That's like installing a bitcoin miner in your PC and claiming, "But it only runs in the background." Fuck off and buy your own hardware, Microsoft.

Even if the storage were strictly local, there would still be some privacy concerns. Hackers can't steal data that isn't there.

At that point, you're just paying for training Microsoft's AI.

You need to make a Powershell script or batch that uninstalls/turns off the feature and then make a scheduled task that runs the ps1/bat at login.

Its insane that this is what you have to do to keep this shit off your system, but it's effective.

I had to do this with New Outlook because it kept reinstalling after Windows updates.

I think that was The Zuck.

There's Windows 11 IoT LTSC if you really need Windows, but Microsoft is going to continue to fuck its users, and I don't know why people in the know would choose to continue to use an OS that's actively working against them when non-corporate, open source alternatives exists (Linux, or for the more niche people, BSD, Haiku, Redox)

Any IT admins in the audience: this is what remediation scripts were made for

I mean, it's not like accidentally running Recall once is going to automatically compromise all your data to Microsoft in perpetuity. I don't even know what the final implementation is supposed to be, I'll make up my mind when I can review it, not before. Ditto for Apple's version on the new iPhones and all the other stuff being promoted right now.

But in this case I'm just puzzled. At this point it sure looks like they installed some package or service that is probably the ground layer for the actual feature at some point, but that doesn't mean it's doing anything at the moment. Maybe logging the same metadata as the Win8 feature, but it's not clear (there is a "activity history" setting in the privacy settings now, perhaps it's part of that?).

If anything the panic shows how tainted the Recall name has become, but that's not new for Microsoft. That original logging feature was also widely hated, as was a lot of their search or their current, mandatory "widget" news feed that nobody has ever found useful. The question is how widely tainted it is, and whether normies will want to burn it with fire as much as the Linux-facing techies.

Unless it doesn’t make money.

I fixed a windows install for an old guy, and windows patched the BIOS to prevent F11 loading the boot menu....

Never again

Linux Mint 22 Cinnamon

I don’t recommend going that direction. I think you’ll get better results with Proton and Proton-based solutions like Lutris and family.

With GPU passthrough you can get almost native performance. This requires 2 GPUs though (iGPU as second one should suffice), dunno about the input lag and stability though as I only have one GPU

Without it though? Not even worth trying

Proton is a better option unless the game needs Anti-Cheat, which most won't work in a VM, anyway

Personally I dual boot Win10 LTSC with fake credentials and some privacy tweaks for games that need to be on windows

I've tested it, and while it does work, there are some issues:

1. The anti-cheat doesn't work for all games (delta force demo).
2. Sometimes i had strange sound glitches.
3. I had to use a second mouse. In certain games where you drag the camera (like Sins of a Solar Empire), the camera spins uncontrollably fast.
4. It's not as fast or responsive, but good enough.
5. Game Pass games don't run.

Because of these points, I still keep Windows 10 as a dual boot option.

I only play games that work native or via proton. I just use windows for the CAD programs that i need to use. I do gpu pass through and native for my host system idk how this would be for gaming tho.

Ease of adoption (or appearance of)

Thank you for acknowledging that point. Because since Win7 or so, Almost all major Linux distributions are shitloads easier to learn that any windows environment, no matter how unfamiliar you are with Linux. Basically, all major desktop environments behave like an optimized WinXP desktop.

let me be the one to say: the only people who "need" VR are those earning their money with selling VR products. No one else in the whole wide world actually needs VR.

(and most don't have desktops or laptops to start with)

On Windows? You sure about that?