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.)