Microsoft Windows Recall, remember to disable it

[WelshBloke]

1) the feature is opt-in

But it's something that's baked into the OS, it's not something that I choose to install into my OS. And I suspect that it'll be something that you can't uninstall and always has background processes running regardless of it you are using it or not.

2) an OS is like any other bit of software: what is deemed to be a requirement of that software changes (let's be frank: increases) over time. The topic of including a web browser in an OS was once hotly debated, now no longer.

I'm fine with a web browser being included. Not ok with that web browser being uninstallable! So thank you EU for showing that Microsoft were full of bull when they said it was an intrinsic bit of the OS that can't be uninstalled.

IMO Windows (technically speaking) is in desperate need of a cycle of innovation followed by a cycle of streamlining.

They need to step back and get the basics sorted again. People are not enthused with their new features (hence the win10/11 install figures).

On Linux I find that resource usage (apart from what I'm using the computer for) is pretty static over a day-long session; I've got resource monitoring applets on the taskbar and I basically never see them start cranking up for no apparent reason, whereas this is completely ordinary behaviour for Windows. In fact on Linux the first time I've seen unexpected resource usage (aside from a browser tab going bonkers) was because I had a Win10 VM running

There's so much almost archeological layers in Windows. I totally believe that they don't entirely know what's going on under the hood and are scared to change too much in case they break something they don't know how to fix!

 

[ssokolow]

They need to step back and get the basics sorted again. People are not enthused with their new features (hence the win10/11 install figures).

Funny you should express that sentiment just now.

I was just enjoying being brought back to when life was simpler and the slow post-2000 rot of UI design hadn't kicked in by a thin client I recently finished converting into a "Windows XP pretending to be Windows 98SE" box (it had no drivers for actual 98SE) and musing on something I wrote earlier about how UI designers should be required to read 90s HIGs (1, 2) and spend some time using Windows 98SE and WinAMP and the like to get some perspective for how little of value or consequence they've added to desktop UIs in 20 years of trying and how much they've ruined in this rush to rewrite everything on web-tech and try to force convergence with mobile design rooted in very different hardware limitations and interaction modalities.

(Granted, I did also then free associate to a memory of the Freeman's Mind version of Gordon Freeman shouting "No, not like that! Start over!" as he returns fire on soldiers trying to kill him, but that's just me. My brain likes to free-associate things that make me grin.)

 

[manly]

Total Recall

View attachment 101144

"I'll be back."

Microsoft will try the data-scraping Windows Recall feature again in October

Initial Recall preview was lambasted for obvious privacy and security failures.

arstechnica.com

 

[Steltek]

"I'll be back."

Microsoft will try the data-scraping Windows Recall feature again in October

Initial Recall preview was lambasted for obvious privacy and security failures.

arstechnica.com

Yeah, Arnold with fuzzy pink Groucho Marx glasses.

Microsoft, as usual, marches onwards in its never ending quest to prove that it is, in fact, possible to successfully pick up turds by the clean end.

Sometimes, I truly wonder if there is something in the water in Redmond, Washington that causes bent brainwaves or something.....

 

[igor_kavinski]

Sometimes, I truly wonder if there is something in the water in Redmond, Washington that causes bent brainwaves or something.....

It's snake oil salesmen type of product managers who manage to convince the board/upper management that they should be given the chance to prove their idea works. All they do is amass some cool amount of wealth in the few years they are on the project and then retire happy or move on to scam some other company with their moonshot ideas. It's a never ending cycle of mediocrity and high class fraud because the bigwigs love hearing the promises of impossible things becoming reality.

We have "hired" a consultant like that. Barely present in all our important meetings regarding the technical projects he is supposed to be consulting for but he gets his money (a cool $3500 per month) like clockwork. And that's just from us. Imagine how many other companies he must be scamming.

 

[manly]

It's snake oil salesmen type of product managers who manage to convince the board/upper management that they should be given the chance to prove their idea works. All they do is amass some cool amount of wealth in the few years they are on the project and then retire happy or move on to scam some other company with their moonshot ideas. It's a never ending cycle of mediocrity and high class fraud because the bigwigs love hearing the promises of impossible things becoming reality.

We have "hired" a consultant like that. Barely present in all our important meetings regarding the technical projects he is supposed to be consulting for but he gets his money (a cool $3500 per month) like clockwork. And that's just from us. Imagine how many other companies he must be scamming.

Microsoft can't let Sundar Pichai and Google have all the fun.

 

[mikeymikec]

Read the room, Microsoft:

Microsoft Says Its Recall Uninstall Option in Windows 11 is Just a Bug - Slashdot

An anonymous reader shares a report: While the latest update to Windows 11 makes it look like the upcoming Recall feature can be easily removed by users, Microsoft tells us it's just a bug and a fix is coming. Deskmodder spotted the change last week in the latest 24H2 version of Windows 11, with...

it.slashdot.org

 

[ch33zw1z]

Starting to plan my move back to Linux, Buh bye win11

 

[Steltek]

Starting to plan my move back to Linux, Buh bye win11

Yeah, know the feeling.

The only reason I haven't done it myself is that I have a standalone copy of Adobe Acrobat Pro XI that I still need to use semi-often for forms javascripting. Now that Adobe has deemed the licenses for older desktop standalone versions of their software to be retroactively cancelled, I don't have that issue anymore.

My next build will run Linux only. I might keep a Windows VM for troubleshooting for family, but that will be it.

Besides, MS has already telegraphed that Windows at some point in the future is going to be a subscription-only service running in a VM and not installed locally. And, to quote one of my favorite philosophers, Homey D. Clown, "Homey don't play that".

 

[mikeymikec]

Yeah, know the feeling.

The only reason I haven't done it myself is that I have a standalone copy of Adobe Acrobat Pro XI that I still need to use semi-often for forms javascripting.

In Linux I have a Win7 VM set up with access to things like Xara 10 and Microsoft Access. I've tried to do Xara 10 with Wine but it threw a runtime error after install even though the VisualC library was installed. It works in the VM and I rarely need it, so <shrugs>.

I made the jump in 2018 with plenty of time before Win7 expired and with a year or three of seeing how things were developing with Win10. On Linux there has been so much less drama (at least for me).

 

[pcgeek11]

Starting to plan my move back to Linux, Buh bye win11

I started switching a few years back and for the last couple of years I'm fully using Linux Mint. I haven't found anything I can't do in Linux. No need for Windows and their silly BS.

 

[WelshBloke]

The only thing stopping me is having to redownload my steam library on my crappy internet connection!

 

[ch33zw1z]

The only thing stopping me is having to redownload my steam library on my crappy internet connection!

My biggest challenge will be migrating from safe-in-cloud to a password manager that supports Linux.

 

[Steltek]

I started switching a few years back and for the last couple of years I'm fully using Linux Mint. I haven't found anything I can't do in Linux. No need for Windows and their silly BS.

Yeah, I have used Mint for years.

However, I've been having recent problems after installing Mint 22 with the screen blanking and it totally locking up, forcing me to power cycle it. Haven't been able to solve it yet.

 

[pcgeek11]

Yeah, I have used Mint for years.

However, I've been having recent problems after installing Mint 22 with the screen blanking and it totally locking up, forcing me to power cycle it. Haven't been able to solve it yet.

Upgrade or clean install to Mint 22?

I upgraded my desktop to Mint 22 from Mint 21.3 as soon as it was available and had screen blanking issues just as you describe.
Rolled back to my Macrium Reflect Image to 21.3. Then waited a few weeks and upgraded again and it has been perfect since.

 

[Steltek]

Upgrade or clean install to Mint 22?

I upgraded my desktop to Mint 22 from Mint 21.3 as soon as it was available and had screen blanking issues just as you describe.
Rolled back to my Macrium Reflect Image to 21.3. Then waited a few weeks and upgraded again and it has been perfect since.

Clean install, as my prior 21.3 just point blank refused to upgrade no matter what I tried.

Still messing around with it today, but no luck solving it. Whatever it is will eventually turn up.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Clean install, as my prior 21.3 just point blank refused to upgrade no matter what I tried.

Still messing around with it today, but no luck solving it. Whatever it is will eventually turn up.

Can you still ping it when it locks up? Maybe ssh is available for a clean reboot

 

[WelshBloke]

Anyone installed steamOS as a main OS?
It didn't want to install in a VM for me so I'm curious about anyone's experience with a bare metal install.

 

[Steltek]

Can you still ping it when it locks up? Maybe ssh is available for a clean reboot

I can both ping it and SSH to it initially, but after it locks up the pings time out and trying to SSH in just doesn't do anything.

I haven't really done much customization on it yet, so I think I'm going to re-download the ISO and do a clean install just to be sure my prior ISO download wasn't corrupted in some way.

 

[igor_kavinski]

The only thing stopping me is having to redownload my steam library on my crappy internet connection!

You can backup your entire downloaded Steam library to external disk and then restore it to a freshly installed OS. Though if you are gonna change to Linux, not sure how that will work. Maybe the asset files won't be redownloaded.

 

[WelshBloke]

You can backup your entire downloaded Steam library to external disk and then restore it to a freshly installed OS. Though if you are gonna change to Linux, not sure how that will work. Maybe the asset files won't be redownloaded.

I'm assuming that a library downloaded with windows isn't going to play nicely with Linux but hopefully I'm wrong there!
My games library is on a separate drive to everything else so that would work perfectly for me!

Edit: apart from that drive being an NTFS one. I get that Linux can read that but it would annoy me!

 

[ch33zw1z]

I can both ping it and SSH to it initially, but after it locks up the pings time out and trying to SSH in just doesn't do anything.

I haven't really done much customization on it yet, so I think I'm going to re-download the ISO and do a clean install just to be sure my prior ISO download wasn't corrupted in some way.

Yea that’s a bit more than just some screen lockup. I’m not sure if I gotta say it, but do the ISO checksum verification too

 

[Red Squirrel]

Man, stuff like this makes me so happy I run Linux now. This mass surveillance stuff now days is getting out of control. Phones are bad too, that's why I run a custom rom.

 

[Steltek]

Yea that’s a bit more than just some screen lockup. I’m not sure if I gotta say it, but do the ISO checksum verification too

It is definitely an issue with Mint 22. Redownloaded the ISO (and did a ISO checksum verification to verify ISO was good). Then, did a clean install and it was just as bad about locking up.

OTOH, I did a clean install of Mint 21.3 and it doesn't exhibit the lockup problem at all.

Mint 21.3 is a LTS release, so I'll probably just stick with it for now.

 

[Steltek]

Well, there are reports now that as of version 24H2, Windows Recall is a mandatory dependency of Windows Explorer. If you disable it (which you can, at least for now), it apparently breaks Windows Explorer and drops it back to the Windows 10 version.

Makes you wonder exactly what data Microsoft is going to be collecting in the background, and further whether it will actually be possible to be able to truly disable Recall.

I am absolutely glad that Windows 10 will be my last version of Windows....