This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
What do you think it would cost MS to sell a version of Windows that's just...an operating system, and not an ad platform? Like Windows XP? Or maybe Windows 10 on day 1?
But think of the shareholders. They would loose so much money they would probably have to sell their third yacht!
But think of the shareholders
I have many thoughts of the shareholders.
Most of those thoughts are quite violent.
I mean they would have to charge enough to make it financially viable. Maybe no one else would buy it but me...
I would totally do that. Only problem is that the third yacht really is my favourite, so I'm gonna pass if that's okay. Thanks!
Love the outside the box thinking though. Really inspirational!
Windows Recall today: Your data is private and stays on local machine.
Recall after 2 years: We may use your data to train our AI models, improve our services and personalize your experince.
Interesting way to put it. The first thing it made me think is that if they did the 2nd part entirely within your PC, would it be ok privacy-wise, and would the consumers be ok with it?
I haven't looked into the current iterations options, but I think I still want the option to turn it off. Personally I'm less concerned with privacy and more concerned with it using up my computers resources.
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.
I ditched Microsoft on my new build back in Feb. I installed Mint and it's been a really smooth transition for me. I can still do everything I used to, although I know there are some use cases where it's a problem for people. All the games I've tried run well.
But it does give me peace of mind that someone isn't going to change my settings in a way that benefits them in a patch. I feel like I'm working with my OS to get things done instead of wrestling against what some corporate MBA wants.
No joke, that's the distro I'm going with 🙌 Mint is great!
Fuck Windows Recall, and fuck Microsoft generally for being so fucking awful to their customers
Always has been.
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.
I consult in some companies that don’t even allow copy/paste in outlook. Like, these are actually MS security policies that can be set.
How in all of the actual fucks could they allow MS to see everything on your screen.
I agree with your non starter assessment.
Don't they already have a non copilot version of Windows 11? I believe the OPM is already using it.
if they did the 2nd part entirely within your PC, would it be ok privacy-wise, and would the consumers be ok with it?
I mean Chrome works exactly like that now so, yes?
Depends on how you define "okay". Do people understand how it works, and want it to work that way? Absolutely not. Even if they did, would they do absolutely anything to change it? Also no. And that's talking about software that has a dozen excellent and free alternatives.
Set up a new pc for someone today. Turned off all the OneDrive backup options. Rebooted and copied their files from a USB to SATA adapter. They turned the backup settings back on again!
Can't trust Microsoft.
Yep. I’ve set up Windows a few times recently, and they don’t give even the slightest consideration for your settings. Few days later, they changed right back.
They will be configured to benefit Microsoft first. Maybe not immediately. But it sounds like a losing game.
They "trust me" dumb fucks
May not have been Gates that said it, but it embodies an attitude which appears prevalent throughout big business.
Edit: O&O Shut Up is a free tool that helps you easily turn off/disable quite a few of the worst "features" on Windows.
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)
I think that was The Zuck.
You would be correct.
Sure but they are so criminal they turn them right back on in an update.
Can’t trust Microsoft.
Always has been.
It really hasn't though. MS used to make money selling Windows and other software licenses for shit that you owned. Back in the day before personal data was The New Oil.
Wait! The only selling point of those "AI" PCs runs on non "AI" pcs?
Switching to linux few years back is really fucking printing...
I was spending so much time cleaning up windows and then microshit would roll my settings back🤡
Yeah that's me. Never even made it to W11 but the fact that I had no autonomy over "my" computer really fucking irritated me.
So wait, did I miss a step or is this NOT the recall feature they announced for Copilot Plus PCs? None of the screen snapshots, none of the AI search.
As far as I can tell it's some variation on the logging search that was in Windows in Win8, right? At least when it comes to user-facing functionality.
EDIT: As far as I can tell, people mentioning this mean the full Recall feature, but even though the package shows up on my Copilot+ PC the functionality itself is nowhere to be seen. I'm still confused about this and relatively convinced something is being missed somewhere.
I've found it very interesting. So far as I can tell it's installed and enabled (even on non co-pilot PCs). However I have yet to see or hear of anyone that has found evidence that it is actually running and doing its job (capturing screenshots and creating the database for the AI model).
To me, the fact it's installed and enabled and they've not stood up by now and said "Ooops our bad, it was only meant to be on copilot PCs and we should have added it to the features menu so you can turn it off" just suggests that, the stuff is there and at some point they will flip a switch on ALL PCs to enable it.
It's quite lucky that a week or so ago when I got some new SSDs, I put aside 2TB for a linux boot to replace my old broken previous linux dual boot. Not booted into windows in over a week.
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.
For FUCK sakes....
I have a 256GB SATA SSD machine here, that I want to put a fresh install of windows on a 1TB M.2
And NOW is the fucking time windows puts out this fucking Win11 24H2 garbage... that's BSOD'ing peoples computers, having other issues, and now this.
Microsoft has definitely not been a great tenant on dual boot systems over the past year. Usually you get the occasional MBR overwrite, but it’s been pretty bad. Windows has been assuming it’s the only OS.
I fixed a windows install for an old guy, and windows patched the BIOS to prevent F11 loading the boot menu....
Never again
That seems extremely unlikely. That is controlled by the BIOS itself. Windows Update does deliver BIOS updates, but only as provided by the OEM.
Microsoft has incredibly been doing stuff I'd consider unlikely just a decade ago. They're at the point where I go "unlikely but far from impossible. Likely in a while".
BOGU!
This is why win10 in a vm
Does win10 vm run games well? (like power hungry games)
I've tested it, and while it does work, there are some issues:
Because of these points, I still keep Windows 10 as a dual boot option.
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
Someone in a previous post said they did it with one GPU, using a script to handle the swap when they were done with the VM.
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.
I have heard, though not tried, that GPU passthrough works for those diminishingly few problematic games where a certain anti-cheat is the sticking point.
