Microsoft's 'Recall' feature can't be uninstalled after all
mashable.com
mashable.com
It's incredible how much Microsoft is resting on their laurels in terms of seeing Windows as insurmountable and so consumers must take whatever Microsoft decide to dish out. I would have been totally resigned to this fact a decade ago, but middle-school+ kids these days don't use Windows - they use Chromebooks. A huge minority of them use iPhones. Familiarity with Windows systems isn't a given anymore in the university courses my friends teach.
When these kids grow up and get to make procurement decisions, are they going to be as tolerant as today's staff of whatever overreach Microsoft is going to try with Windows in the future, or are they - and their peers - going to be much more accepting of non-Windows solutions? I think they'll be much more accepting, especially given how much is done in a browser today anyway.
MS will obviously survive, and Windows will of course remain dominant for the foreseeable future but I can't help but feel that if/when the tipping point for the end of Windows' dominance comes, it will all be seen retrospectively as so preventable, because it is.
Well no, they actually believe people want this. Microsoft strongly believe in "Data Driven Everything". Of course here in Europe we look very different at this due to privacy concerns. But trying to explain that to the MS consultants I work with is difficult. They're very much part of the cult of telemetry on everything and AI as the cherry on top.
They view deep analysis and reporting as their added value. Like those stupid office insight emails that tell you you didn't have enough speaking time in meetings or that you need to use @mention in teams more. They actually think companies and employees value that shit.
I've challenged them on this several times saying if they think people love it so much, why do you make it so hard to turn off? But they think it's just a matter of 'adoption' and users will love it once they get to know it. Their 'adoption' strategy is mainly marketing evangelisation crap that we're supposed to send out to the users.
I find it very weird to see how so many people can be so out of touch with reality. But I guess in the US they look at privacy very differently.
Now I'm moving to Linux. All of my many computers and even more virtual machines are migrating from various versions of Windows over to Mint Linux. I've been developing software that runs on Linux for a while, so I'm familiar with it but haven't used it as my main OS yet.
Windows is going to end up as a front-end for Microsoft AI, which will likely be something like Clippy but with its own opinions and it will automagically try to do stuff for you that you don't want or need it to do. I can see this going wrong in so many ways. "I reorganized all your files for you!"
I'd argue that they jumped the shark with Win8. It's been one step forward, two steps back ever since.
.
The big shortcoming that windows had was fixed with powershell and windows terminal. Now it's just got mildly annoying UI defaults.
The big things it has are:
* Outlook and the rest of Office * Visual Studio * Active Directory * Tons and tons of industry-specific applications
Agree that Windows has a massive lead.
Lots of people got tricked on their iPhones after installing ransomware apps on them from the app store.
They couldn't figure out how to exit the app (you had to open the shutdown dialog via long press on power) and went on to pay after getting a scary warning/full screen hijack
Been a while since I read about this though, not sure how frequently it happens currently
Management will make those decisions and choose Windows because of the surveillance features built into it.
And the consumer space is not where Windows shines, but rather in the enterprise, where services and features are vertically integrated.
Maybe you're on to something. I just wish they'd replace it with Linux.
But really, 90% of companies don't need central authentication/Active Directory at all. They just do it because everyone else does it like that. Most admins don't know how to manage AD properly and how to nail everything down so you don't get owned.
I’d say there is a stigma around Linux in North America, if I went into a shop and every machine was running Linux I’d either think they are dirt poor or some kind of underground Russian secret service operation. It just isn’t seen.
Idk why you'd think they're poor, as people say: "Linux is only free if you don't value your time"
People are still using Windows simply because they are used to working with shit.
I don't advocate for any of this stuff, but I guess it's only bad when Windows does all the same stuff, but not ChromeOS.
As for Apple, at least they make an attempt.
I am a .NET dev who needs to remote into work via Citrix. I work locally on my own .NET stuff in JetBrains Rider and I can do it on the Chromebook now.
It's not perfect but, damn, it's really close: After installing the Linux Dev Environment I have all the tools I need.
The only issue is that sometimes when I open Rider, the font sizing is off - sometimes it's small, other times it's large. But Ctrl + MouseWheel takes care of it. Once or twice I had to restart the linux VM (right click, Close Linux and it's done) but that's it.
Anyway, the point is that nowadays there is becoming less and less reason to stay on Windows and I think Microsoft knows this too, hence trying to lock you into their ecosystem as much as possible and trying to dangle things in front of you to keep your attention.
But who would have thought that for £400 I can run all my .NET stuff on a Chromebook. Not only that, I switched from a 14700K on Windows to a 1260p running ChromeOS and coding/compiling is just as fast. It's nuts.
Side-note: Windows peaked at 2000...
It should be forbidden to ship PCs with Windows preinstalled, unless the user made it a conscious purchase decision (and offered to choose between several options). I suspect fewer and fewer users would be willing to fork hundreds of bucks for something that's objectively terrible (and only getting worse), tech literacy would only improve as a result.
But then you can bet Microsoft lobbying won't let that happen.
I don't know where you're buying PCs but where I'm from there is always an option to buy the PC with FreeDOS at a discount of about ~$20-30 compared to the Windows version. Lately, I also see an increase in Ubuntu computers.
> But then you can bet Microsoft lobbying won't let that happen.
I feel "MSFT lobbying" isn't charitable at all to what MSFT and their devs have achieved. You have to give credit where it's due. MSFT have spent a lot of time, effort and dev years ensuring that their customers can run their software without breakage and downtime. This is a non-trivial aspect that most people who don't use Windows often dismiss. MSFT have made themselves the standard platform because of their broad support. This is no mean feat. Canonical has tried for almost 20 years at this point and have barely made a dent with Ubuntu.
I'm not from there, it seems. The best you can do here is build your own PC, or go with a distributor (typically Dell/Lenovo) whose configuration allows opting-out of buying an OS. Needless to say that it's not a mainstream purchasing behaviour.
> MSFT have spent a lot of time, effort and dev years ensuring that their customers can run their software without breakage and downtime.
That wasn't my point at all. It was to stress how the ludicrous track-record of Microsoft anticompetitive practices, establishing and sustaining a decades-long monopoly, barred non-expert and non-enthusiasts from experiencing (possibly favourable) alternatives.
My point served to counter this very statement.
There are alternatives (Linux, macOS, FreeBSD etc. etc.) but none are favorable like you say. A big part of why this is the excellent job that MSFT did as a technical force looking to consolidate Windows as the OS standard all those years ago. The efforts taken by them to ensure broad based application support and customer research and support on Windows has contributed to the continued perpetuation of their monopoly. Were they ever the most technically advanced option? No. Is any of their software products absolutely perfect and without deficiencies? Also no. And yet they are possible the leading software company in the world. This is NOT solely due to their anticompetitive practices. Saying so is a form of denial about the true state of things.
I gave Canonical and Ubuntu as an example of someone else who has tried to step in the breach and failed to force out MSFT as an alternative for non-experts and non-enthusiasts. Ubuntu and the FOSS community are many things but friendly to beginners and non-technical people is not one of them. There have been tremendous advances in the past decade but we're nowhere close to this being the Year of the Linux Desktop. The bottom line is that mainstream (i.e. non-technical and non-enthusiast) consumers will choose to put their money where they get the best value and that remains MSFT and Windows.
I don’t know about that, but they have spent a lot of hours making sure you can run .exe’s from 30 years back, which is wildly valuable to slow-moving corporations.
Which ones? There are tools like dosbox to get old DOS programs running again.
The only difference is that the web platform wasn't very capable 20 years ago.
This was the first (and probably only) time you could find Linux machines in most mainstream computer stores. The Linux version was better than XP in every way you can measure: cheaper, faster, easier (more optimized for those 7" screens). And these "netbooks" were just intended for browsing the net, so it doesn't matter all that much which system you run.
I worked at a computer store at the time, and the Linux machines sold poorly. People wanted Windows, because that's what they're used to. Consumers are very price-sensitive, but many opted to pay more.
All of this was a long time ago, but I doubt it would be very different today. Microsoft really doesn't need a "lobby" to keep the majority of machines Windows by default. People want what they're used to, because that's what's working for them. why do you think there is so much complaining every time Gnome or Firefox changes something?
which is exactly what I'm talking about, that's the force that keeps competition inexistent: there can't be exposure to alternatives if the alternatives are not given equal visibility.
Now, let's repeat what Asus did by making it into the law that resellers must offer 3/4 OS alternatives, and let's wait out a few more terrible Windows releases to see if a trend emerges.
> People want what they're used to, because that's what's working for them.
Understandable, but in practice Microsoft keeps breaking this deal with end-user having no say in the matter (did people overwhelmingly ask for gaming ads and XBox uninstallable links in W7? tiles in W8? Dumbed-down settings in W10? Bullshit AI in W11? …). Now compare this to running a regular upgradeable (or even rolling) linux distro, which one do you think offers the least disruption on the longer run?
First you could still create a local account after there was backlash against cloud-everything, nowadays a local only Windows is quite complex to set up.
The Cortana/search bar stuff was also regularly re-enabled or parts of it made non-configurable, with them only occasionally backtracking. Not to speak of the ads that are included nowadays.
Their strategy generally seems to be boiling the frog when it comes to pushing these features onto the users, whether they want it or not.
1. Install with throwaway Microsoft account 2. Create new local admin account 3. Use local admin account to delete setup account
Not ideal, but not difficult either.
I use https://rufus.ie/en/ when creating bootable USB sticks, and it turns out that this tool detects when you're trying to create a Windows installation medium, and prompts with a list of useful customizations, including "Remove requirement for online Microsoft account". (if you look through the screenshots on the webpage, there's one with the Windows customization dialog box)
However, as I mentioned below, I read something recently that says local account options are being removed in an upcoming version (I can't find the article now).
I presume it means the binaries are being removed from the ISO so this may no longer work (except for Enterprise and LTSC I'd imagine).
It's just that they've been hiding it more and more for consumer installations in successive releases.
Effectively, expect even enterprise to be online first with an escape hatch for those customers that need it, obviously only available on E5 or something like that...
* Although it was changed before windows 98 with "Plus 95!"
System requirements for Recall Your PC needs the following minimum system requirements for Recall:
A Copilot+ PC
16 GB RAM
8 logical processors
256 GB storage capacity
To enable Recall, you’ll need at least 50 GB of storage space free
Saving screenshots automatically pauses once the device has less than 25 GB of storage space
I can't imagine the powers that be are too thrilled with this feature, and much like the Intel TPM High Assurance bit, I bet there's an undocumented way to remove it.
Microsoft is not maintaining a separate build of Windows for DoD. They may have bespoke licensing agreements and support contracts, but military and DoD workstations run regular windows.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/servicedescripti...
>> Subscriptions in the GCC High and DoD environments include the core Exchange Online, SharePoint, and Skype for Business features. Given the increased certification and accreditation of the infrastructure, there are some feature differences between the general commercial Office 365 offerings and those available in GCC High and DoD.
Whether or not "windows professional with group policies" constitutes "their own version of windows" as per bongodongobob is left as an exercise to the reader.
Okay, it's the same operating system, but DoD managed devices have a different set of features and capabilities that are allowed to run on that device so I would contend that counts as a different "version", if the disagreement is semantic so be it
Given time it will be twisted into a method for profiling consumers and delivering targeted marketing that goes far beyond cookie tracking and search histories. That doesn't work as effectively on a business or government system.
Windows is "military-grade". That's a laugh.
In case of doubt I am referring to the US practice of marketing certain products as "military-grade". Perhaps to suggest something like, "If it is good enough for the military, then it is surely good enough for the civilian."
On the inside, the term of art for things like Windows is COTS - Commercial, Off-the-shelf.
I had other reasons, but that one set me off as the final straw. The other one was not being able to make offline accounts by default from installation, without using hacks.
I want my file system to have metadata that (along with things like name, last edited, checksum, etc...) puts all files into one of three buckets:
1. Pre-installed
2. User generated
3. External sources (e.g. Downloaded, transferred from network, transferred from device)
If a file from an external source becomes executable then starts affecting my pre-installed/user-generated files and it's checksum isn't already on microsoft's whitelist, then I want microsoft to quarantine that executable and look inside it to figure out what the heck it's doing to my computer.
Consider this:
No one is uploading your personal files, they don't do anything and trying to look into them wouldn't help anyone avoid viruses.
Only executables are worth looking at.
Every single executable that was generated from an external source has been checked by microsoft. That is how microsoft, apple, google, and every anti-virus provider out there gets new virus definitions added to their virus lists.
If those executables weren't sent, then every single virus definition would be empty.
Yes, but I want an audit log of it all. I doubt they'll ever add this, so I'm not going to blindly trust Microsoft. In my case most files are probably not whitelisted anyway. I download some really huge files sometimes, do those get uploaded too? Do they throttle the uploads and if they don't are they just killing my personal network bandwidth? Like there's too many questions that set me off.
I'm happy with my choice.
Again, they're not uploading all files, they're only uploading suspicious executables, which by their very nature of needing to be fully loaded before they can be executed tend to be fairly small.
> Yes, but I want an audit log of it all. I doubt they'll ever add this [...]
Microsoft already has audit logs to the point where you can even see who's trying to turn off microsoft defender in your organisation and on which devices.
Just remember, they're catering to big businesses who are actually getting attacked on the regular, and big businesses need crazy levels of auditing.
They're going to have more than you can handle.
> so I'm not going to blindly trust Microsoft.
All security is based on trust and nothing about what you've said so far is specific to Microsoft.
So, why not microsoft?
Microsoft respects Group Policy because enterprise uses Group Policy.
We did have some tweaks as an outcome. But overall these policies have been in place for years. And since 2012R2 and later there have been multiple instances where windows updates policies wont apply in lieu of say... "maintenance windows" features being added to windows, so it ignores policies centered around deadlines etc.
Home also technically has Group Policy, but it's not supposed to and most workarounds to that effect are very janky.
Whilst users can turn it off today, Microsoft's history and lack of straightforward responses, suggests that won't be the case tomorrow.
Besides: Some of the concerns are that it can be utilised by people such as home abusers to track those who might be looking for help to leave that situation. It's a new, very powerful, avenue of control for people stuck there.
Being able to opt-out does not fix that. They've created a new way for people to be harmed.
gaming and for sandboxes. It became obvious to me a while ago with the slow integration of ads where this was going, and that I could never treat windows as a serious work station, unfortunately. I don’t even do banking on windows machines anymore, and it sucks because I greatly prefer WSL 2 and windows tools for my work environment compared to something you typically see in a corporate setting like a Mac.
Most people don’t get any choice at all about what operating system they use. And those that do get a choice have extremely limited options.
The amount of effort I had to spend to turn off things like Search Indexer and Windows Defender is insane. You can disable things in the control panel but it's still not really disabled and you have to play tricks to really disable it somewhere else. And then sometimes it would come back on because ... reasons?
I have zero faith that if I disable something (anything!) on Windows that 1) I've actually disabled it, and 2) that it will stay off.
Current Windows is absolutely horrible giving any control over the internals – even more so than the old XP/7 systems were. Before my VM I hadn't touched Windows at all for more than ten years, and I was shocked just how difficult some of these things had become.
Microsoft has lost their collective minds.
I can see most people, and by that I mean the rest of the world outside Techiestan and Hacker News, will want or perhaps even need this feature.
Having the computer literally show you what you were doing is super duper handy for Joe Average who doesn't computer and certainly doesn't care about learning to computer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0lUbqDrFWU
NSFW
Will be a lot easier with Recall
The data is not small. If it was being uploaded, you'd notice.
microsoft regularly makes promises about privacy and telemetry, and regularly breaks them. They have been multiple law suites about this.
In germany we say "Wo ein Trog ist, sammeln sich die Schweine", especially in the discussion around recall.
I am good with terminal, browser, NP++ and few other programs, while some people don't even know the existence of a file system hierarchy, or want to touch things to interact with them instead of typing.
To be fair I also presently have several hundred tabs open and never delete anything.
I'm kinda surprised people just throw away their history. I love being able to restore deleted posts as long as I remember a few words of the content
I get anxiety if I don't restart my devices daily.
If there hadn't been decades of normality of browsers storing history then people, particularly those in tech circles, would absolutely flip their shit if it were announced as part of Edge. There would be mass revolts on these forums if it would sync with the cloud. It makes measuring how popular a concept would be difficult as what is niche today and what is wildly unpopular with tech folks today may or may not have any relation whatsoever to what will be popular with users in the long term.
The idea of recording my activity on my laptop is something I could see being useful in a business where I’m billing non-stop and this feature would automatically generate invoices.
But on my personal laptop? I really can’t think of a single legitimate scenario.
More importantly, I think Microsoft should be demonstrating what use cases it envisions outside of potentially generating LLM training data.
> Recall’s analysis allows you to search for content, including both images and text, using natural language. Trying to remember the name of the Korean restaurant your friend Alice mentioned? Just ask Recall and it retrieves both text and visual matches for your search, automatically sorted by how closely the results match your search. Recall can even take you back to the exact location of the item you saw.
Of course you're welcome to say this isn't a legitimate scenario for you, just as someone might say no situation is legitimate for them to need browser history, but that doesn't mean there is no legitimate scenario for consumers in general. It also doesn't say much from you beyond "I don't like it".
EDIT: I meant opt-in.
It lets me find back pages I know I browsed in the past with a (few) keyword(s) in the address bar without firing a web search, which might not return the same results as last time. Like, what was the exact crêpe recipe I followed last time?
The alternative is bookmarks but then you need to think of bookmarking the page at the time you access it, but you don't always know you will want to go back to a page later.
It also makes it very efficient to reach pages I visit frequently. Unfortunately it also makes procrastination very efficient, with slacking off one character away ('n').
I wouldn't really say the user experience is as good as Windows. Apps hang more often, steam freezes and restarts more. Games crash more often. All problems I wouldn't have on windows.
Even though Linux has gotten really far, I wouldn't be using it if windows wasn't so shit now.
It's like Ubuntu saw the Windows Store (less features, worse performance, unmoderated and not used by anyone) and said we want that too.
Just download the thing from whoever's website and you won't run into problems.
You can download steam for linux directly on steam (in a .deb package).
Actually I can't remember having it at all but I only have a handful of things installed through .deb files anyway.
hmm.. while i do not use my linux systems for steam or high-end gaming, I do not share the same user experience as you. To me, my Linux machines.. running web browsers, RDPs, Text Editors, Mail, etc.. are run rock-solid. If anything, is faster loading apps compared to my Windows 10 work machine and Windows 11 home laptop.
My Windows 11 home laptop (which upgraded itself over a year or so, now) only exists because of a job... but that is ending end of the year. I cannot wait! First thing I am doing when im done.. uninstalling Windows 11... hello debian!
I have been using steam in arch-based distros for a very long time and I have had no issues at all running most Windows games (see https://protondb.com). As someone else mentioned, the only real issue might be anti-cheats in competitive games.
I use Windows mainly for work. The user experience is terrible. At least 10 years ago it had a usable GUI, now it is a mess. Crashes are normal. Security theater is _security_.
I've noticed that Windows 11 (on multiple computers) will often display a flash of whatever programs are currently open on my computer before it gives me the login prompt after I wake the computer from sleep. That should never happen. It's yet another nail in the Windows 11 coffin for me.
Can't say I've shared your experience in terms of programs hanging more often, with the exception of Steam and games. Productivity apps and browsers run perfectly fine for me. That said, Windows has its own frustrations. I'm not sure if it's all fixed yet, but Xbox Game Bar and Game Mode for Windows came with awful performance penalties. When it first came out they had this Game DVR feature which was like Shadowplay but limited your FPS to half of your refresh rate. Enabled by default.
If anyone here is considering switching to Linux, I'd recommend taking a look at whether the games _you_ play run well.
Also, AppImage is so awful.
If you can't somehow get hold of an ISO from your office's IT admin you can always sail the high seas :)
You can evaluate it here: https://info.microsoft.com/ww-landing-windows-10-enterprise....
Be sure to check the hash with the link provided in comment from dartharva's. Hint, it checks out.
There are also unofficial MVS dumps like here: https://awuctl.github.io/mvs/
MSFT would not risk their enterprise and government business with features like Recall if they weren't sure that it had a need and requirement at some level. Fundamentally, MSFT isn't a company that preempts the needs of their users and haven't been for the past 25 years. They've lagged behind mobile and then cloud because none of their main customers thought they were important. They face they're going on the front foot is indicative that they have a larger strategic play going on here.
Coming to the product itself there appear to be sufficient controls in place on Recall. It's opt-in even if it cannot be uninstalled. It's all on-device and allocates specific space on the PC. I can specify if I don't want it to take snapshots of certain apps and it doesn't take snapshots of private browsing by default. IT teams can manage Recall through policies AND users can have further fine grained control over their settings beyond that. It's great that MSFT have included these right from the start because if we're frank, not all other tech companies would have thought it through.
Personally, I wouldn't use Recall but I can see the appeal and usefulness -- for both consumers and IT teams. You ask your computer what you did on so-and-so date and it'll tell you? That's great and what computers should do -- take cognitive load off of our minds. Plus it's a great audit trail in the office.
My only gripe with it -- as with anything MSFT really -- is security. I'm not entirely sure MSFT would be able to stop people writing malware that explicitly steal Recall data. I hope they have safeguards but being closed source that's the best we can expect unfortunately.
I know HN users are more likely to be anti-MSFT and more tech savvy than the average consumer -- it's a bit like the tech enthusiasts buying smart products and the senior engineer living alone in a forest off-grid. But what we have to remember that we're the exception than the rule. Most people are tech-illiterate and have no inclination towards learning more or towards spending more time with their computers. Products like this are for them.
It's to train a multimodal AI model on what each employee role is doing and to replace employees. Because a lot of our jobs are looking at one set of windows and typing/clicking on another set.
The only avenue really free from their clutches is mobile, but this does nothing to alleviate that.
I want to believe this is the end of the line for windows, but it feels more like the end of humanity. :(
These tech exec idiots too rich now, the billions and desire for trillions has seeped into their shriveled brains.
Got it.
This will also lead to an increased demand for custom "distros" and modding tools and such, which has always been a bit of an "underground" community but has occasional resurgences. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40130230
As the old saying goes: "challenge accepted." ;-)
everything below 10 has been EOL for a good while now, and 10 only has a year left
[1] Not things like the latest games, but LOB applications and related software that companies rely on for their work.
Look up the CVE stats by OS and you'll see the truth.
2024: https://www.cvedetails.com/top-50-products.php?year=2024
9 of 10 are Windows branded operating systems. 3,276 across all of these platforms. Of these, over 1,000 are different versions of Windows 10. Compared to 1799 on the Linux kernel, which is actively developed and will be actively developed for the foreseeable future.
Are you arguing that Windows doesn't continuously get CVE entries? That is not supported by the data.
It is not logical to arrive at the conclusion that after the manufacturer states they will no longer address vulnerabilities, which are actively being found as if this year, that this is FUD.
How many of those CVEs actually affect you in a tangible way as to disturb your sleep at night?
If you are not considering your threat model to discern which threats you should actually care about, you are doing computer security wrong.
I agree completely that they have a low signal to noise ratio
Of these, over 1,000 are different versions of Windows 10
Precisely. Windows 11 will be worse.
Of course this doesn't exclude bogus/trivial ones, since CVE-chasing is a thing now, but how many were found in older versions?
...and no surprise that I'm being downvoted by the corporate-authoritarian shills for speaking against the narrative. Yet it should be clear that the newer the code is, the buggier it is --- especially with the sort of competence that passes for developers these days. MS is adding more and more attack surface every day.
"Truth doesn't mind being questioned. A lie does not like being challenged" ;-)
The difference is Win11 continues to address these vulnerabilities. Or you switch to a Nix or air gap the machine. The incorrect approach is to continue using Win10 in production as if nothing is going to happen.
I suspect we have gotten sidetracked into arguing different things at each other for this reason
Glad I am not the only one who has observed this. That Python int to str conversion “denial of service” CVE from a few years back was a complete joke.
Repo is here: https://github.com/ntdevlabs/tiny11builder
I wouldn't go to Win 11, and Linux actually is good enough now.
You say this like there is one Linux that people can use. Instead, it is fragmented to hell and back with various distros. Since it's a replacement for Windows, a GUI will be needed. There's more than one of those as well.
So now, some one needs to go down that rabbit hole of trying to decide which distro/GUI will work for them. So a generic "use Linux" is not very helpful.
I want ice cream and approach a vendor in the park. He has brands and flavors I've never tried before so I throw up my hands and say there is too much choice, he needs to pick one single kind of ice cream before he gets my business. Somebody who behaves like this doesn't actually want ice cream in the first place but is pretending to for some reason.
I generally get away with a lot of use cases at work just saying "It's the front facing LTS of Ubuntu" and a lot of use cases at home just saying "Since it's just for me I'll customize Arch to what I need" but there are still plenty of scenarios, in each, just going with Windows makes a lot more sense (or sometimes is the only viable option, e.g. home HDR or work vendor application support).
Having more options isn't a bad thing unless you let yourself suffer choice paralysis. You can just not do that.
Since then, Microsoft has only added evidence that my decision was a good one.
On Earth, construction worker Douglas Quaid experiences recurring dreams about Mars and a mysterious woman.
Intrigued, he visits Rekall, a company that implants realistic false memories, and chooses one set on Mars (with a blue sky) where he is a Martian secret agent.
(this website is behind Cloudflare and blocks me unless I use a VPN)
Just move its files (C:/windows/system32/wua*.dll) somewhere else. Put them back when/if you want to install updates, install updates, then move them again.
So maybe windows will still boot after "uninstalling" recall, but it could have other consequences that make the operating system less stable.
> Yes
> Ask me again in 30 minutes
You haven't been paying attention to Windows lately, haven't you?
in other words, can we fool the os to thinking that the device is not compatible? in terms of NPU compute maybe.
ps: the "free space" workaround is a hilarious approach if at all effective.
I would be surprised if this stands up in courts in the EU.
DeepinOS had to best experience so far but there is something with it that makes me not want to fully transition to it, Idk what it is
they are out of control going over a cliff since Windows 95...
I really wish the US would stop coddling these disgusting megacorps and would actually bring out some guillotines instead. M$ still existing is a complete farce and mockery.
> Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification, and it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the combination of the ease of changing how a platform allocates value, combined with the nature of a "two-sided market", where a platform sits between buyers and sellers, hold each hostage to the other, raking off an ever-larger share of the value that passes between them.
Windows doesn't quite fit that definition in the way that the term is usually applied to marketplace platforms like Facebook and Amazon.
This is a misfeature but it doesn't feel like it's directly part of the intervention in the buyer-seller relationships Windows is mediating.
Eshittification is suddenly waiting 40 minutes on a drive through because the restaurant refuses or can't hire more workers.
you can basically let your product become garbage because any free market pressure, you know, the kind that capitalism purports to thrive on but actually seeks out to destroy, is gone. Why bother improving if there's nowhere else for your consumers to go?
We're so used to using substandard products, getting substandard service, using things that are old, busted, falling apart, inappropriate for the job we're using them for, and so on... I love seeing westerners go to other countries and go "whoa! they're living in the year 3000!"
UK's ships with nuclear war heads are still using Windows XP.