TLDR:
Windows 11 v24H2 and beyond will have Recall installed on every system. Attempting to remove Recall will now break some file explorer features such as tabs.
YT Video (5min)
This is absolutely insane
My condolences to all Windows 11 users.It’s becoming common knowledge that:
- It’s not a matter of if but when will xyz service/application be breached and what are the potential damages it could do to me and others?
"I assume every online service is not if; it’s when is it going to be breached? Right? So I operate under that assumption, that everything is going to be breached at some point. And so that’s why Recall was so scary to me where it’s like, I don’t care how secure they say it is, like you look at Spectre and Meltdown no one thought these things were going to affect millions of CPUs and here we are, right?
- Steve from Gamers Nexus
[Level1Techs] Microsoft Is KILLING Windows | ft. Steve @GamersNexus
I guess I just have to keep Windows 10 with a custom group policy that disables all updates either forever or until I learn Linux.
Linux gaming is getting to the point that I could consider the switch, but I hear scary stories about Nvidia drivers.
I had no issues with Nvidia. PopOs has support for Nvidia on install…I used it and it worked
I had minor issues when I first installed, but I worked them all out.
Install and give it a week. Seven days. If you can’t get it all figured out by then head back to windows. If you can figure it out, you probably won’t go back.
I have a GTX 1080 and I’ve been gaming on Linux for over a year now. No issues. Only thing that you cant do is some of the new generation window managers (wayland) but even that is working well in the nvidia drivers that arent on stable yet. In any case, the previous generations window managers work great and if wayland doesnt work properly for you, you can just as easily do without it.
Point is, its worth it to make the switch. I set my partner up with Linux Mint when their machine didnt qualify for windows updates anymore and they’ve had no problems, games and all. And they would never touch the command line.
Would recommend
Yep same with PoPOS. Great little distro. It’s been my daily driver for years now.
hey GTX1080 user! Have you been able to get any games running with RTX? I picked mine up used a while back, and I kinda stopped PC gaming ages ago, but it’d be nice to use these features if I could. I haven’t been able to get RTX Portal or RTX Quake 2 to work right via Steam, so i figured the card/drivers just can’t handle it and I should just play vanilla DOOM instead.
My understanding is the 1080 predated the RTX stuff by a generation, even when I was on Windows I don’t think the Nvidia drivers for the 1080 supported RTX well, if at all
Correct.
I still have a 1080Ti in one machine and it definitely does not support RTX of any stripe, on any OS.
Running EndeavourOS with Nvidia on Wayland for some months now. Prior to 555 it was a bit janky at times. Since then, and now with 560, the only issue I’m having is related to sleep/hibernation mode. Game wise everything runs fine.
If you have a new NVIDIA GPU (Turing+), you can use the new open kernel module. If you have older ones, I guess you’re stuck with the proprietary or bad unofficial open source ones. The open kernel module works good and gets the job done. No need to be afraid of it. I get over 1000fps in (optimized) minecraft with shaders. I couldn’t do that in windows.
Which GPU do you have? I’m looking for an upgrade and those framerates make me drool.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Mobile
Turing +, not tuner +
done
I use Garuda and NVIDIA gives me no troubles
It may have been the case in the past but Ive used both the GTX 680 and RTX 3060 on Fedora with no issue whatsoever. I have veen using the nvidia peoprietary drivers and they work well.
You can run Windows in virtual machine, you know.
It would be the best if you could have dedicated GPU for it, to be able to run games with nearly 100% performance.
I guess it depends on what you do, but as an awerage user - not really much to learn in terms of Linux. No special knowledge needed to use it like a normal person. I had to reformat some drives so Linux can use them and learning about Heroic games launcher, Lutris and Bottles to run non-steam games and windows software amd learn about compatibility layer built into Steam.
Otherwise it just works. Using Linux Mint. Didn’t boot to Windows pretty much since I installed it - there was no need.
I’ve had no significant driver issues with Mint and a 2080, myself. I switched back in February, and most things – games included – just work. The few that didn’t, were easy to fix with some searching on stackoverflow and reddit (about the only thing that site is good for now).
if an idiot like me can do it, so can you.
As others have already pointed out Nvidia drivers aren’t that bad. The only game I’ve had issues with is Star Wars Outlaws, but I think that has more to do with the game itself than Nvidia drivers (It’s not exactly a stable experience on Windows either).
The only big thing holding Linux gaming back is anti-cheat, but that’s mostly because AAA developers don’t want to allow anti-cheat on Linux. It’s worth checking out if your favorite online game can be played on Linux.
Worst thing is you may have to learn downgrade commands on PopOS if a game breaks with driver updates.
I moved to Linux Mint after a brief stint with Manjaro. I don’t prefer the Cinnamon interface, but gaming has been perfect. Bottles, allows me to install GOG Galaxy and the games run. I even modded Skyrim using a manual process and a ton of animation mods, that worked alright a lot of times with Vortex ( for the most part).
Linux can handle NTFS partitions, and just take a small line to fix if they are open during a crash. Flatpak software is really stable to install and keep installed.
I haven’t yet had a problem with steam games.
The only problem I have is with streaming services forcing Windows usage, so I got a VPN and raised the Jolly Roger to watch streaming services.
My 3080 plays games fine, and the few times it got a little slow I rebooted and it all worked fine. Discord calls and Twitch work fine. I even take my VA Online appointments with no issues.
It’s closer to going back to Windows 7 or XP, with a decent free office software.
Nvidia drivers are the reason I end up going back to windows every time. Once installed they work fine, but installation and updating were always fraught with issues, and would inevitably break and piss me off to the point I gave up and went back to windows.
Haven’t tried since I got my amd card, but maybe Nvidia Linux drivers are less terrible than they had been.
Microsoft has been the single most effective marketing asset for GNU/Linux distributions in recent years.
Well Valve was doing too well with the steam deck in that area so they had to trump them, second place is just the first loser.
Valve is holding the carrot, Microsoft the stick.
Tbf in recent decades.
Even tho googled-android should have been even more so, but the hardware licence fuckshittery is a huge obstacle.
So true. I got fed up with all this Recall and AI BS and recently replaced Win 11 (which I upgraded to by accident) with PopOS. No issues so far and PopOS is much faster than Windows.
PC gamer for a lot of my life. My old Win8.1 system is slowly dieing and I can play less and less games…win 11 has made me decide to leave the hobby. I may grab a Steamdeck, but I think I am done with PC gaming (and consoles are just shit PCs now). I have a Linux work PC, but I am not bothering with making a gaming Linux rig when I can just go the Steamdeck route.
Steam Deck is great, 10/10, would recommend, but you could also just load Linux on your old system and keep using it.
I can better justify taking the out presented and using the Steamdeck for my fix. It will be cathartic lol
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Just want to add that most games just work on Linux now. Valve has done some amazing work on this front. The Steam deck, or really any gaming PC with Steam, are perfectly good gaming boxes. Check out Proton DB if you want game-specific info.
absolutely. I had tried Linux on various machines long ago but was one of the people that was put off by older distro’s learning curves - I’m now daily driving Linux on both my laptop and desktop and the main push for the switch is microsoft fucking around with settings, installing candy crush after updates (on a paid OS), adding more and more dumb, unsolicited, privacy invading AI bullshit with every feature update, and running like shit on a perfectly adequate machine.
Modern Linux, with flatpak support? I haven’t looked back once - had to help a friend fix something on a win11 desktop recently and was reminded of every reason I made the switch. Even if I had to jump in the terminal every day like long ago, it would still be worth it to not have bing, copilot, and edge rammed down my throat, whether I want them or not.
Windows is getting so shitty that completely non-technical users are tired of it… as soon as somewhat open minded users start to experiment and realise that Linux feature and UX parity has been achieved - I hope microsoft fucking collapses and we can all finally walk into the sunlight that open source OSes and software represent.
Not effective enough, it seems.
I’m so fucking glad I switched to Linux this year.
Okay, this might be a non-issue: https://github.com/ChrisTitusTech/winutil/issues/2697#issuecomment-2403792309
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.
Edit: of course, the big problem here is that it’s still present (even disabled) and hence malware could turn it back on without you realising. Ugh.
A lot of unpopular “features” and behaviors used to have DISM, policy, or registry workarounds. And MS seems to love to kill those workarounds during later updates.
If MS isn’t letting people uninstall it, there’s a reason for it, and I’d be willing to bet that users will one day find that it has been magically re-enabled by an update.
There will 100% be a policy to disable it. Microsoft may shit on their retail users, but there’s no way they’d force it on their enterprise clients. It’s a security and compliance nightmare and they know it.
Problem is disabling it will likely be locked behind the Enterprise edition.
Kind of like the “Recommended” section in the Start menu. There is actually a way to disable that entirely…if you have an Enterprise license. There is no way to do it on any other version.
I said it was back when they took Group Policy out of the Home edition: the long term goal is to make truly controlling Windows a premium feature that only corporations can afford, and you see that with the slow elimination of many of those settings.
So how can users band together to buy enterprise licenses from each other?
If MS isn’t letting people uninstall it, there’s a reason for it,
🤑 and control
Malware could also reinstall it to be fair, or just create screenshots on its own.
Still smells fishy that Explorer has it as a dependency, “disabled” or not.
Recall is malware, at least according to Malwarebytes!
Malware, or “malicious software,” is an umbrella term that refers to any malicious program or code that is harmful to systems.
Its odd to call Windows Update “Malware”.
Yeah, you are already running Windows.
If you still consider Windows Update malware then you completely missed the other 90% of your hostile environment.
Windows Update is 100% malware by definition. Remember when Windows 7 had a free upgrade to Windows 10? It would force itself into the update queue with regular updates regardless of the user’s permission, and even after x days after the user explicitly said they didn’t want Windows 10. I worked in a computer repair shop in that time. The Windows 10 upgrade that people didn’t want or agree to often failed, breaking the machine. Sometimes we could recover the installation. Sometimes the OS had to be reinstalled. It was intentionally pushing software in deceiving ways to unconsenting users that broke their machine.
All of Windows is malware. By default you have adverts in your start menu, you have pop ups (which is not the same thing as Windows Update, pop ups are a service provided by Explorer) which maliciously install unwanted web browsers.
You can’t support Trump and then claim that only a small part of his following is due to racist bigots.
You can’t support AI and claim that only a small part of it damages the atmosphere.
You can’t support Windows and claim that only part of it is malware.
Windows 100% enables and supports this nefarious behaviour. It’s the abusive spouse trapping you before beating the shit out of you for your own good.
Thank goodness for Linux.
After all the fud and opposition they’ve pushed against it over the years. It’s nice to see them finally do things to help it.
Quick edit to add that it couldn’t come at a better time now that there are companies like system 76 out there. Making Linux compatible systems that ship with Linux that you can actually recommend to someone who is a novice to pick up. They may be on a more expensive side. But what’s your privacy worth?
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A few cents per gigabyte ackshually.
Owned a system 76 unit years ago. Was lacking in the QC area.
I switched to a Framework 13 after having a system76 Darter Pro, and it’s a whole other league. Incredibly well-built, feels great, runs great, flashy as hell, even the fingerprint reader works out of the box with Fedora KDE.
I’m sudoing in the terminal with my fingers! It’s magic! And it just works!
Also, I managed to drop it in the most stupid way so it bent the whole case, and I could get it fixed for 200 EUR, one day shipping and 20 minutes of work by myself, and that was a full casing swap, so bottom assembly plus keyboard assembly, whole case but the mobo and the stuff on it.
This is what having a laptop should work like. That’s what they took from you.
Privacy, security, intellectual property
After all the fud and opposition they’ve pushed against it over the years.
what did they do?? i havent heard of this before damn
They did PR campaigns against Linux and OpenOffice for quite some time – until cloud computing took off and it turned out they could earn more money by supporting Linux than by fighting it.
In fact, Microsoft weren’t happy about FOSS in general. I can still remember when they tried to make “shared source” a thing: They made their own ersatz OSI with its own set of licenses, some of which didn’t grant proper reuse rights – like only allowing you to use the source code to write Windows applications.
Switched a few months ago and glad I did
how the fuck could they have possibly done things in a way that makes explorer tabs depend on recall?
if they can’t even separate out recall from the rest of the operating system then i have absolutely no faith it will be secure.
It’s so you can’t rip Recall out without ruining Explorer, and possibly other things
Internet explorer did similar things, try to remove it and the OS would just crash.
Edit: just remembered it also had direct memory access to make it faster (well, less slow) which was so insanely unsecure on so many levels.
it also had direct memory access to make it faster
WHAT?!! That’s a special level of wbject disregard for security.
how the fuck could they have possibly done things in a way that makes explorer tabs depend on recall?
It’s very clearly an intentional move to keep it installed.
Windows Debloat Tool:
https://github.com/LeDragoX/Win-Debloat-Tools
I run this on any new Win install. I also suggest Portmaster so you know where your data is going (I use it on Linux too!)
However, if you can, it is really worth switching to Linux. Linux is built as a tool by the people using the tool. Windows is making a product. Enough said.
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.
There are a surprising and growing number of Linux compatible tools. Software is usually why people have a hard time switching. If you’re dependent on Photoshop/Adobe, check out:
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve
Gamers should check out:
This site shows how well games run on Proton (compatibility tool) and people offer solutions to get them running if there’s any snags.
Just want to weigh in on Resolve. I was able to get the free version running on Mint, but the free version can’t do H.264. I then bought Resolve Studio, but activating the license did not work so I ended up on Windows for video editing.
I also had to switch back to Windows for Affinity, as I have been using Photoshop for years and I have yet to find another piece of software (excluding Affinity) I can move at speed in.
Once I get the content creation off Windows, I can probably leave it behind for good.
Linux is built as a tool by the people using the tool.
And that’s exactly how it feels to non-programmers or not-enthusiasts jus trying to exist.
And those devs (not all but more or less most) will troubleshoot and gear it towards how they see fit with less newbie testing.And all the webapps work well on Linux, so you have the MS office apps and the apple iCloud apps (by just having an account there). Even for photo editing, there are web app solutions, these days.
Ahahaha, holly fucking shit.
They literally added some OS in their spyware.
Welp. Time to buy a NAS to back up all my stuff and rebuild this pc with Linux.
NAS is just a Linux machine with fancy storage.
(I know thats technically not an accurate statement but Im standing by it, I know what I said)But for a one-time backup of one pc you just need a disk tbh - and even that one can be the single one in your current pc if you are able to make a partition for either backup or for Linux.
Like, space permitting, just carve our a partition & transfer there what you would to NAS (or external disk drive, or an additional drive connected to the pc).
If space is a bit tighter just carve out the few gigs needed to install Linux on that (nowdays for most users “it’s fine”). Then must boot into Linux & use the rest is the drive as is.
Ofc if you have full disc encryption, raid etc this solutions are slightly more complicated.I wanted to but a NAS system anyways to do house backups and stuff.
And this system is RAIDed so getting everything on to the NAS will be easiest and start the process of setting up backups for the home.
Yes, another lost soul coming home to the self-hosted community!!
May I PSA/strongly suggest going FOSS early on?
(So not getting a closed software NAS)Good luck on your journey!
I remember them doing this with Internet Explorer back in the 90s.
“We can’t remove this thing we don’t want to remove! Look! It’s hastily integrated with the OS! We can’t remove it ever!”
yep exactly my thoughts. IE couldn’t be ripped off a Windows computer at all
It still can’t… Hidden somewhere deep in windows, there is still a IE, believe me.
At very least there’s an OCX for InteractiveHtmlView or some stuff. It’s how South Korean banks apps run. I think even the EU-specific “unbundled IE” versions still have that ActiveX / OLE control registered, though it might be crippled.
For years… well pretty much since I had a PC, I had a Windows partition. Why? Well because I (sadly) paid for the damn thing (damn OEM deals). Plus, I admit, sometimes they were things that only ran on Windows.
For few years now though, everything, literally, from the latest tech gadget to playing games to VR, works on Linux.
Few weeks ago I deleted the Windows partition. I didn’t have to. I didn’t boot on it for months. It didn’t affect me.
Still, I now feel … safer, more relaxed, coherent.
When I see shit like that, I feel even better!
VR works on Linux? Thru Steamvr?
Depends on the headset, they don’t all work on Linux unfortunately.
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I tried running the standalone, ran some script from Lutris but ended up with a broken wine config. Hopefully we can at least get that working without VR at some point.
It’s the chicken and the egg problem, and most companies choose to be the chicken
Yes, I even play VR Windows games on Linux., the latest one released just weeks ago being Subside.
I’m using a Valve Index but with ALVR even standalone HMDs, e.g. (sadly from Meta) the cheap Quests line. You can find a lot more details on https://lvra.gitlab.io
Thank you!
Sadly Windows is still required for a lot of cad softwares.
I havent found anything I can’t do with freecad and blender.
Freecad is OK but it wouldn’t even be considered in a commercial setting like I’m working in. I work with Catia, Solidworks and Polyworks. None on those run on Linux.
Put it in a shame box (VM). This is how I run my specialty software.
vMs work well too though.
VM is still windows tho, just one layer deeper.
With less control of your machine and you can compartmentalize your use case instead of using dual boot. Especially if you’re only using it for one program
Yea about a year ago I switched entirely over to Linux. I am a system engineer so I have to deal with windows at work all the time but on my computer, I feel calm. Like I don’t have to worry about my operating system. Windows is getting in the way more than it’s helping 99% of the time now.
That’s my situation, except I haven’t deleted my partition yet, mostly because it sits on a separate physical disk. Maybe one day…
Even Windows exes work on Linux now. It took me some time and learning but I got Wine to work with some program from my walkie talkie’s manufacturer and it involves serial programming over USB.
Indeed but I very rarely, if ever need it except for some games. Usually there are FLOSS equivalent of most software. They are sometimes worst but often just as good and, obviously, they can be modified. So Wine and Proton are amazing but hopefully needed less and less.
The best windows debloater is delete system32 and install Linux,.
I have windows on another physical disk and I plan to delete my windows partition in 2025 and start a software raid 0 configuration, sadly linux is not yet ready.
Explorer has had so many dependencies attached to it that if even one of them sneezes, the entire desktop environment crashes and has to restart.
Actually insane when you think about it. Why the hell is a file explorer the root process of the desktop???
I’ve only ever forced stopped thunar once and it was because I was messing with some thumbnail settings. Naturally the rest of my system worked as normal, as well as the other thunar windows open lol.
Looking at you microsoft store rdp manager. Crashing explorer when I dare to leave something in the clipboard.
I had to kill nautilus a few times back in the day and nothing but the background remained until I restarted nautilus. But ymmv
But but muh Linux is better.
Though to be fair, Linux has had some great developments!
I did kill explorer.exe many times ;)
There is a setting somewhere IIRC (or at least there was) where you can separate file browser processes from the “main” explorer.exe process so you can kill individual Explorer windows but not the whole environment.
I won’t upgrade past 10 anyways and if I can’t run 10, back to Linux I go.
So… how does this exist in corporate environments where PCI DSS is necessary? Is the government also going to have to deal with fallout from this?
I wonder if there will ever be a point where legislation dictates features from an os vendor… we lost control of our hardware when they started forcing updates. I’m sure someone will hack a DLL or something to allow explorer to run but kill this component… But should we really need to hack our systems to protect ourselves from spying?
Inb4 Linux - I ran Slackware in the early 90s, and my server still runs a deb based distro… but when I want to play Forza, I’m pretty limited with my choices, etc.
Microsoft: We’re going to arbitrarily require TPM and SecureBoot and say that makes Windows 11 more secure even though that’s a feature of your motherboard, not our operating system.
Also Microsoft: In Windows 11 the file explorer program depends on a program that periodically sends us screenshots of your screen.
So secure!
Security <> privacy. And this is where they slice the difference. Although, they’re not secure, either lol
Sending random screenshots somewhere is not secure at all lmao. That’s a hacker’s wet dream.
I’ve been wondering this too. Will there be a way for company policy admins to somehow remove this fully? I work in an industry that deals with very sensitive and private information - no way in hell this would ever even remotely be allowed or pass any audits. Even just existing but being disabled could be problematic.
But big companies aside, how will this impact small companies who have no real in house IT? The potential for it to be capturing and storing stuff like, as you say anything required by PCI compliance, could turn into a nightmare. We also know this will inevitably be hacked or used by spyware somehow, someday, too no matter how secure they say it may be. So now a bad actor can recall an entire day work and data capture from a worker?
Wondering the same here. I work in an extremely regulated industry as well. We have MS as a strategic partner but haven’t even deployed win 11 yet.
That said we have a deal to use co-pilot and also chatGPT. Both in a unique version that is compliant with company policies. Co-pilot integration into teams is not quite recall level but similar, think video transcripts, meeting and chat summaries, etc. I have no clue how this works practically but I assume there are some strict contracts regarding training data and data usage in place.
From my understanding, you can prevent Recall from running just fine, you only can’t remove it.
OS level malware. I suspect it will be turned on in an update a few years down the road. And then MS will be caught, say “whoops my bad!” And pay a 100 million dollar fine after their new valuation on the stock market of 5 trillion dollars.
Looks like I picked the right year to switch to Linux on my primary pc.
Switching to Free Software is kind of like planting a tree: the best time was years ago (because you’d be over the learning curve). The second-best time is now.
Agree. And as someone who planted that tree 25 years ago, the shade sure is nice year after year.
That said, it’s getting so much better every year. It’s already ahead of Windows in user-friendlyness IMO, but every year I’m amazed by how much cooler it gets.
The only thing I can say is that on Linux, you get excited by the thought of updating your system. It’s like a Christmas feeling instead of a Monday one.
Same here.
I’m using Arch btw
I made the jump last year. There will be ups and downs but I don’t plan on using another OS on my computers ever.
how the fuck do you even begin making recall a dependency for explorer?
I can’t say how. But I can guess why.
“Sorry, can’t remove it. It’s a system dependency”
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Easy. For example: You could take something stupid like the controller for the background colour, move it into the recall.exe and have the file explorer reference the function inside the recall.exe. So whenever someone deletes the recall.exe the file explorer will crash because it can’t find how to set it’s background.
It’s complete bullshit, but it would work. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
