For those who don't know, Microsoft Recall is a system that screenshots what you do every few seconds, and uses OpenAI's vision api to allow search on eveything you did in the past.
Is this why a new privacy setting quietly turned up called "Activity history"?
> "Activity history: Jump back into what you were doing on your device by storing your activity history, including info about websites you browse and how you use apps and services. Review the Learn more and Privacy Statement to find out how Microsoft products and services use this data to personalize experiences while respecting your privacy"
"Copilot" also quietly turned up on my Windows 10 taskbar not long ago. I certainly didn't opt to install it.
Frankly I don't understand why anybody would be surprised over this. They have been doing this stuff for over a decade? (I specifically mean quietly introducing privacy-hostile settings without user consent or knowledge, not other user-hostile stuff that's been going on for much longer).
Copilot first appeared in my taskbar after an update as a pinned app, which I promptly I unpinned.
Another update not long after it appeared again in my taskbar, this time not as a pinned app icon, but it literally replaced my "show desktop" button in the bottom right corner! I had to search online for other confused people looking to restore a basic desktop navigation feature that's been around since like 2009, because they replaced it with the 17th ever-present option to jump into their preinstalled bloatware!
And just as a sidenote, Microsoft Copilot is by far the worst LLM I've tried to use, both in how dumb it is, but also in how infuriating it is when it gets stuff wrong while spamming a bunch of stupid emojis into every sentence like it's excited about how confidently stupid it is.
"Okay, it'll send your information to the cops, but only if it sees you doing something REALLY, REALLY bad, and we pinky-promise we will not let cops in authoritarian countries decide what that means".
If you've got nothing to hide you've got nothing to worry over.
Why do you worry? What do you have to hide?
Don't leave your house, a Black Maria is on its way to pick you up.
Did you mean "opt-in" rather than optional? Optional is the same as "you can disable it". Also, you scratched it out. Are you sure they just enable it without asking? The link above even has a screenshot.
I think someone quickly realized it was all being stored in an unencrypted database on the machine when the first version launched, so anyone with direct access can just list through the whole thing.
What makes you say that it uses OpenAI models? From what I understand right now it only has search functionality, which could be easily done with a local embedding model (similar to the open-weights CLIP) and possibly OCR.
No, that scheme would be too hard to contain so the three letter agencies are blatant about it. They just let tech companies develop these things and know they'll have access to the data anyway.
For every real user that finds a tool slurping up data to be useful, there are 100 law enforcement agents also saying it's useful so everyone should hop on the bandwagon.
It's not possible for you to know how hard to contain it is.
The commonality of strange beliefs like this makes me seriously wonder if there is an initiative on social media to teach this form of thinking as being correct, because it is certainly the default. Try defecting from the game for a month and watch the other players from the sidelines, and see if you don't see what I'm talking about.
Proton is able to run just about anything now, not just games. Stop using Microsoft Operating Systems where you can and mark them as needing replacement with real software in all your reports.
From my experience, it's still not a 100% replacement. For example, there are no drivers for a pretty common steering wheel (Logitech G923). There is a driver for an older version of the wheel that kind of works, but no TRUEFORCE support. And even then, you have to mess with some low level details to make it work, send magic values to the hardware on plugging it in.
I also noticed that games from Steam end up taking up substantially more disk space to the point where I can have only a few games installed on Linux.
And even the games without any special hardware dongles don't work so well as you imply.
I am new to steering wheels-not sure if this is the exact version because they mention xbox)? Try a distro with a very recent kernel (6.11; like Nobara for a gaming focused distro).
> I also noticed that games from Steam end up taking up substantially more disk space to the point where I can have only a few games installed on Linux.
Shouldn't be substantially more disk space. Would you provide stats?
Proton makes a Windows environment for each game as it installs those 3rd party libraries in the environment and that is used for disk calculations, while on Windows those libraries may be installed directly to the OS. Each 3rd party library and the shader cache is stored separately. This is my guess-I do not work on Proton.
> And even the games without any special hardware dongles don't work so well as you imply.
Anticheat and a few obscure Windows libraries are an issue. River City Girls needs some media foundation library or it does not show cutscenes. Valve is working on them.
I wish anticheat/multiplayer was universally an option on install. I don't play multiplayer games online, and often I'd like to be able to cheat in single-player, because I'm time-constrained and would like to cut out some part of the game I find less fun. Anticheat only makes my experience worse.
I still don't get why wheels even need drivers at this point. It's 2024 and even with a legit version of Windows, there are all kinds of problems with all different wheels and all different games. We have a couple of axes and a bunch of buttons and some feedback. Steering wheels have been around for at least 30 years.
And if you DO have a driver, why does the fucking game have to have a list of supported steering wheels? Shouldn't that be abstracted away from the game? Isn't that the whole point of all those gaming and device APIs that Microsoft has built?
The experience with racing games isn't great on Windows, it's going to be worse on Linux where manufacturers put exactly zero investment into making it work and the crossover between sim racers and Linux developers is very small.
> From my experience, it's still not a 100% replacement
if it were a perfect replacemente, there would be no Windows.
for some it's good enough to endure the rough spots.
if you want to replace Windows and give yourself a gray area, and you can afford it, get a computer with 2 gpus and use a VM with VFIO and looking glass and you can contain its naughtiness away while enojoying it at native speed for gaming or whatever you want at 4k@120hz in a window or fullscreen inside Linux.
Seems like a downgrade, and I doubt it can handle Premiere. Honestly I'm looking to move off of Adobe stuff anyway, but I will have to do that before ditching Windows
For many graphics professionals, that's like asking if you'd consider replacing C++ with Rust.
There's one answer you might provide when you've the luxury to start things over and ramp up on all the differences, but practical reality is that you rarely have that luxury. Fluency and confidence in the tools you already use provides strong resistance to switching, even if alternatives promise they're ready to meet your needs.
Imagine if no C++ compiler existed for your operating system. Even if most of the code you write is Rust, would you be able to use this operating system?
Maybe one day Okular will finally enter the 21st century and start supporting signing pdfs with digital cert signatures and become a viable replacement.
Yes, I already have. Unfortunately, all the best tools for photography (my hobby) are Windows and Mac only. So I migrated to Mac. Linux is not an option because my software simply won’t run.
I run it on Linux everyday with Steam on Proton. It is my go to game on steamdeck and my Fedora desktop.
By default steam wants to download the old old old Linux version that doesn't allow online play, but if you enable proton it will download the Windows version and run fine. I am pretty sure it doesn't have a real anti-cheat included.
I recently set up my gaming rig dual booting Win 10 and Linux. I've spent almost all of my time in the Linux side, and when Win 10 is EOL I am no longer dual booting - Windows can live in a GPU passthrough VM under Linux with only Steam and whatever Windows software won't run under Proton/Wine.
Windows can see what I want it to see and not the whole machine. It has completely broken my trust.
Valve Index. I currently dual-boot Windows for VR. This is the rabbit hole I went down (to be clear: SteamVR, specifically the compositor, is completely broken).
1. Install Monado with libsurvive.
2. Discover that libsurvive doesn't have the "smarts" that SteamVR has, and that calibration can be wonky (and was wonky for me).
3. Learn that you can import SteamVR calibration data. I can't do this in Linux because, well, SteamVR doesn't work.
4. Dual boot Windows with the intention to copy over calibration data.
Well, I got Monado and libsurvive running some time ago (Valve Index, X11, Nvidia), even for Beat Saber. It sadly was unplayable, because reflections were wrong in VR apps, it felt like both eyes using the same reflection angle instead of adjusting it to each eye. For close objects this was bearable, anything further away would look "wrong" and cause VR sickness. Also the FoV was wrong, it felt like a vignette around the screen edges, a good bit narrower than in SteamVR. Oh yeah, and the latest version did not build for me, used a previous one.
Performance, especially in Beat Saber, was great and better than SteamVR!
I would expect SteamVR to at least work enough for calibration. You could try switching to beta or other versions.
My guess is they focus on Proton for Steam Deck, which can not run VR comfortably (but, it can run it via USB-C docks/dongles, the power of a full Linux PC!). So we get constantly better Proton compatibility, including work on anti cheats, but VR is low to no priority. The market is pretty small, especially if you mostly worry about Index and related PC-tethered headsets. Also developing VR for Linux can't be an easy task.
I am especially annoyed that they more or less dropped the ball when it comes to Beat Saber via Proton. Beat Saber was an official launch title for Proton, but was unplayable for months [1].
Overall, if you are willing to deal with some annoyances, give it a try, it might cover your use cases.
SteamVR is playable, but not at Windows level and rough around the edges. I personally run an Index on a 4080 Super (previously 3080) via the SteamVR runtime. System details in case it matters: Arch Linux Zen kernel, X11 (i3), Nvidia drivers, SteamVR Beta, usually a recent Proton GE version. I remember playing Beat Saber, including modded [1], Until You Fall, Pistol Whip, Raw Data and After the Fall without issues. Non-steam applications outside Steam can also work, I have a launch script that sets up the env vars for Proton, should be easier via Lutris.
I see some problems however. VR itself is not as smooth as it should be, 100% playable, but not as smooth as I remember it ages ago on Windows or using a FOSS VR [4] stack (which has other issues). I don't really use SteamVR home, it sometimes takes a while to load. SteamVR window on the monitor has weird flickering issues, usually I can't get into its settings, likely i3 related. Firmware updates are mostly broken. No (I think) standby for the Lighthouses, I toggle them via Home Assistant and smart plugs.
Shout out to steamtinkerlaunch [2] for making certain settings easier to apply and ProtonDB [3] for tweaks if needed.
Does anyone know any good "debloat" scripts to disable all these modern features of Windows 11 and bring me back to something that resembles the Windows I grew up with?
I'm having a hard time keeping track of all of the registry keys and config settings I need to update to keep this crap at bay.
O&O ShutUp10++ is a requirement for me. It is my preference because every debloat script tends to legitimately break the OS. I have had to do clean installs multiple times this year after customers ran them. MS provides registry keys that can be configured, but they do consistently move them around. Without an application which can easily revert automated changes, it'd be nearly impossible to keep track of it all, let alone notice changes. Upside is not having a broken system, downside is needing to open it once every week or two. I agree with the other comments that LTSC would be better, but there's no reasonably legal way to obtain it, and nobody wants to have the BSA knock on their door asking for a quarter million USD per license violation. https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10
Not directed at you but I find it funny that people (rightfully!) complain about Microsoft spyware and then run some dubious scripts from who-knows-where. With the added side effects that these scripts always disable/remove waaaay too much and break the install which then lead to users cursing Microsoft for things that the user has broken without knowing.
I find it funny that on website called hacker news, it's still assumed that anyone who customizes their system must also be an idiot that knows nothing about being safe online.
Ultimately it's Microsoft not giving those users what they want. They have to accommodate the OS to fit their needs and sometimes it breaks.
It should be technically easy for Microsoft to decouple Recall from Explorer. I already saw this in the 90s with their web browser, coupled to the OS for purely commercial reasons.
I wouldn't say always. The last time I ran such a script, it didnt break anything. Granted, I did as the repo readme expressly and boldy stated, more than once, that 'anyone using this should read through the list of commands' (it was also nicely commented for lay people) and disable any sections related to services they use. Regardless, the defaults seemed quite sane and I even had to enable/uncomment a few for other services/products I didn't need.
I think it's a pretty damning condemnation of Microsoft's current product strategy, at least in relation to the user segment that visits hacker news.
People are willing to run highly privileged untrusted and unverified code in the personal computers, just for a chance to remove the stuff you're actively spending money and time developing.
Microsoft's software is now indistinguishable from malware. If I had to run Windows, I would have zero trust in it, which matches my level of trust in "Fast Eddie's Random Script". At least Fast Eddie says in the README file that his script is not attacking my computer. Microsoft readily admits to its status as an attacker, and calls the attacks "features."
This really hit home for me when trying to dual boot. Repeatedly I had to select the drive in the boot menu and rerun the script to get me back to my nice grub chosing screen. I gave up, it felt violating.
Microsoft learned from the years of its own users accepting 3rd party malware on their machines pre Win-7, and pretty much all phone users (Android definitely, probably iOS as well but I'm less familiar) accepting unremovable bloatware, so they added it back with Win8+.
Honestly Windows 10 is/was pretty good once you removed the MS malware but they're definitely antagonistic as a whole.
key difference being - copilot and recall were added to my operating system without my consent - microsoft did not ask before they added these things, via windows update.
those dubious scripts from who-knows-where are run by me, with intent and with my consent, having passed whatever my own personal review process might be for that particular script.
If I try something and it turns out bad, that's on me, and I'm okay with that. If something is done to me without my knowledge or consent and it turns out bad, then that's a different story.
Being a dependency of explorer.exe implies that it can't be disabled. To explain further: explorer.exe is responsible for your task bar, start menu, etc.
I find Gnome on stock Ubuntu pretty terrible for someone used to Windows, since workflows are different and you can't adjust anything.
KDE and Kubuntu are pretty close though. I'd never really considered fully switching to Linux a usable option before I found it, but I've been running it for a few years on my laptop and recently on my work pc, and once Win10 is EoL it'll probably be the only thing I still run. The nice side effect of bloated Electron apps is that at least now most things work on all platforms lmao.
I keep God Mode and a text file of all the reg settings... in case the porkchopolips arrives, which I was greeted with Monday morning. By early after noon, all was quiet again.
I recommend ALL these sites, and would only add Black Viper:
Just be aware that these "fixes" aren't 100% complete and will likely break in the future when Microsoft patches Windows. For example, when people tried to block telemetry in Windows 10 via the hosts file, Microsoft first moved the telemetry servers from named domains to a series of new IP addresses, then after a year or so they patched the telemetry sending code to bypass the hosts file. Similarly if you ran the scripts to disable Cortana/Windows Search, that worked for a while but nowadays you'll find SearchApp.exe doing Cortana work in the background whether you like it or not.
One of the things I've been trying to do since the advent of Windows 11 is ... get rid of 'Recommendations' on the Start Menu. It gives me the creeps to see stuff pop up there.
Whatever you do, the GPO / Registry key doesn't work on Non-Education / SE systems.
If you apply it on an Education version, the StartMenuShellExperienceHost (you may need to shuffle those words around) will read the settings. Nothing on my Workstation version.
Now, it MIGHT work if you push it through MDM, but MDMs cost money, and I haven't been able to find a self-hostable MDM that is up to date.
The "Recommendations" section is near-impossible to get rid of, but it's pretty easy to stop anything from displaying in that section.
Under Settings > Personalization > Start, I have "More pins" selected, and the various "Show whatever" options disabled, and my "Recommended" section is a single empty row at the bottom of the start menu that reads "To show your recent files and new apps, turn them on in the Settings."
Just disable Defender's real time scanning when you run the resultant script, otherwise it will protest. A lot. (Not just when you first run it, but the whole time.)
This is the first thing I run on any new Win 11 device/install and afterwards the OS just disappears into the background and doesn’t bother me one bit.
Incredible feeling of zen being able to scroll past the heated online Win 11 debates that don’t seem to apply to my day to day usage at all.
I've used Chris' winutil https://github.com/ChrisTitusTech/winutil due to being open source and a powershell script, you can see everything it's doing there's no magic. The recommended update schedule change is something a lot of other programs miss out on imo
Additionally for O&O shut up fans, it has the option to launch that too within the script's GUI, as neither has to be installed to run
I know this technically applies to a lot of open source, but given the breadth of tools under the windows 'tweaking' category and the audience I'd expect to use these "magic wands to fix things you disagree with MS on" I'm really surprised there aren't more subtle trojans mixed in with them. I think it's extremely unlikely any significant amount of users examine the source or make sure a binary they're using is trustworthy, even assuming they know what to look for.
There's a lot of 'marketing' possible and a receptive audience whenever a big tech company pushes something like Copilot/Recall, and I'm sure a well timed or prompt 'quick and simple fix' tool release with some a time pressure could get a lot of installs.
massgrave's LTSC install has made it tolerable for me at least. The first time I booted into a standard consumer win11 install I nearly had an aneurysm
I recently made the switch to linux full time as well. Even small things, like my computer taking three seconds from clicking Shutdown to turning off, is such a relief compared to Win11.
Activation, introduced in Windows XP, is the main reason why I consider Windows 2000 the high water mark of Windows. The Windows NT lineup was truly no nonsense, no fuss. Unfortunately the merger of consumer-focused Windows (which used to be the 3.1/95/98/Me) lineup) and pro-focused Windows (which was the NT lineup plus Windows 2000) coincided with the introduction of many annoyances, starting with activation in Windows XP and later adding nagging prompts for updates and security-related things, telemetry, UI changes, and more.
Sadly even macOS has gotten more annoying over the years with its various nagging prompts.
What Windows 7 telemetry are you referring to? Other than WER, there was no telemetry in Windows 7 to my knowledge. There was an update a few years ago that back ported telemetry to Windows 7 right before the final stage of extended support and final EOL.
Back when Microsoft started pushing telemetry in Windows 10, they added additional telemetry to Windows 7 through updates. Not nearly as pervasive and omnipresent as with Windows 11, though; you can just remove the telemetry updates: https://gist.github.com/xvitaly/eafa75ed2cb79b3bd4e9
Yes, it was me that backported some of that telemetry to both Windows 8.1 and Windows 7, circa 2015 when I was working on the WU team but we used WER to upload that to our endpoints. I don't think there was any telemetry at all before 2015 in the base operating system.
Wow. Windows Explorer is literally spyware now. it's incredible to see how far Windows has slid down the tubes, and I say this as someone who LOVED Windows.
> To those that arrive here from any Youtube or Twitter posts, please know that disabling Recall via DISM works fine, and preserves the modern File Explorer (though some might consider this an anti-feature). CBS correctly disables it, and the disablement is preserved through reboots, just like with any other feature.
If people would like to "try Linux before you buy," check out DistroSea! It spins up a virtual machine of whatever distro and flavour you choose to try.
Don't you mean to the ribbon-UI version? Explorer switched from having a traditional menubar with a text-only context-sensitive toolbar (as in Vista and 7) to using the ribbon in Windows 8 and Windows 10; Windows 11 had the new dumbed-down explorer UI design since day-one (though in earlier builds of Win11 the ribbon UI could still be restored in Windows 11 using tweaks - or simply via bugs in explorer: https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows11/comments/s3nilb/you_can_g... ) - it looks like MS fully removed the old code at the same time they added Recall support?
Is Ubuntu the best for a touchscreen? Is there a specific flavour people are happy with? I prefer to keep to Ubuntu if possible as I use it as my daily. I have a HP laptop I got a year or two ago with a pen. It's literally the only thing holding me back from switching on that machine. I have run debloat tools on it but Windows doesn't respect that with subsequent updates.
I imagine you'll have trouble trying to find someone around here that's using Windows because they like it. People use Windows because they're forced to, and that's why Microsoft knows they can take full advantage of that and abuse their prisoners.
I can't believe the EU is wasting all this time on making it so you can... uninstall the camera app on your iPhone? Even the worst parts of iOS are so much less egregious than every interaction I have with Windows. At least people have the option to not use an iPhone. With Windows, people literally don't have alternatives. Their business' accounting software, or whatever domain-specific program is on there and has no plans of getting ported anywhere else.
What a sarcastic comment. It may be true on average, but definitely not for everyone. I'm one of the counterexamples, because I think about it a lot, and I'm carefully considering my options and alternatives.
This doesn't deserve downvotes because it is entirely correct. Your average Windows user doesn't know about this let alone think about it. The number of people who know and care about this are an extreme minority.
It completely deserves downvotes because the question was addressed to Windows users of this forum, who are the sort of person who would think about it. There's no call to insult Windows users just because they use Windows.
They collect your money. The annoying part is that you can't build your own hardware. Not completely up to date with the situation, but I heard with the new CPUs you won't even be able to upgrade your RAM. The RAM will be integrated on the CPU.
I would strongly consider MacOS if I could run it on whetever machine I want. I would even pay for it.
We hold these truth self evident that all corporations are likely created in Delaware and domiciled in Ireland for tax purposes. They are endowed by their shareholders with certain unalienable rights, that among these are profit, lack of regulation, and the pursuit of infinite growth.
I wish people would just switch to Linux so they’d shut up about it.
I use Linux every day, I love it, but it is a community project with rough edges and no customer service. Pretty small rough edges nowadays. But they are still there, and there’s no customer service.
Always happy to see people join Linux, but slightly confused at the folks advertising it. Are they implicitly signing up to be the customer service for these folks who are used to an OS-as-a-product type setup?
>Are they implicitly signing up to be the customer service for these folks who are used to an OS-as-a-product type setup?
I mean first off, yes most people using Linux have no problem with helping people out, my guess is linux users are probably 100x more active on support platforms than anyone else. (if not more)
But also, who on earth has Microsoft customer service? Big businesses sure, but do you think most Windows users get customer support, big tech companies stopped connecting you to a human being like ten years ago. Everyone just googles when something breaks no matter the OS. I'm just so tired of the meme that there is any meaningful difference at this point. I've been using stock Ubuntu Desktop for 12(?) years, out of the box, no weird tinkering.
Do you know how often friends and family call me because something broke on their Windows machine and I'm the "tech guy"? This is the experience of every programmer I know. What difference does it make if they run Linux, yes stuff will break but we've been fixing stuff breaking anyway.
I thought I make a generic reply instead of replying at every comment below:
People don't use Windows over Linux because they prefer the Windows environment/experience. They use it because of the applications, and to some degree the drivers, that are not available in Linux.
I hadn't heard of this feature before, but WTF? Who thought AI parsing everything you do on your system would be a good idea?! I want zero to do with this "feature".
Every single day I am given more reasons never to use Windows again. Glad I moved to Linux early this year. My next desktop will likely be a System76 to ensure Microsoft doesn't get a cut from my next purchase, and it supports a business that supports Linux.
Having followed the same path, you won't regret it. I jumped ship 15 years ago after starting off my career as a C# dev and I never looked back. Linux makes it easy for you to be a developer, while other platforms fight you every step of the way. You'll eventually get into situations where you need to update something manually or rollback a dependecy, but it will be possible, and you'll find bug tickets describing the problem and what you can do about it.
> Linux makes it easy for you to be a developer, while other platforms fight you every step of the way
I see this sentiment a lot but the developer experience on Windows is good to great in my experience.
Much better than MacOS or linux if you are using Visual Studio and .NET, pretty equal if you are using another stack.
What it isn't is posix/unix. A lot of the bad developer experience people have on windows is from trying to (pre-WSL, at least) shoe horn unix tools and practices instead of doing things the windows way.
I’m assuming it is easier to write code on the platform you want to deploy it to. So, server-first stuff: web dev, scientific computing, AI, all that sort of stuff is Linux-first.
Writing Windows software, I’m sure, is easier on Windows.
Happily Valve fixed the whole gaming issue, outside of niche DRM stuff that I don’t care about.
Linux is a tool. Windows is a product. There's only so much UX needed between a user and a command line for a user to have a pleasant experience. Windows chases the dollar and needs to produce products.
Made the switch to Linux myself roughly a year ago. With Steam and Lutris even my gaming needs are nearly fully covered. Developing for Linux servers or the web anyway, so no problems there. Very little troubles with just a plain old Ubuntu distribution, no console wizardry required either. I won’t go back. Businesses that depend heavily upon it though… good luck.
Last time I had Windows installed on a physical machine was Windows 2000, but I still need to keep virtual Windows boxes around for random reasons (clients having terminally braindead VPN setups is a popular one.)
Boy is it bad! Consumer versions of Windows are basically malware at this point. No idea how people can get stuff done at all.
There's an article from Sep 27th where they promise you'll be able to uninstall Recall: https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/27/24255721/microsoft-window... , not sure what that means for this explorer.exe dependency.
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