Many years ago, when I was repairing computers for a living, spyware like this was highly frowned upon.
I haven’t touched Windows in a few years, but I’m still somewhat saddened to see how normalized this has become. Why did society stop valuing privacy?
i’m good.$ man recall
No manual entry for recallDeleted by author
Does the prnhub trick still work? Copilot detecting nudity on the screen and stop capturing.
So just putting as background one random nude pic do the job ?
I was hoping that they learned something from the time the protection on audio CDs was just that they were not read from the PC because the first track had invalid data (while it was ignored by a stereo) was defeat by a simple marker, which make the PC just ignore the track… I think I still have one of this CD somewhere…
It might do.
But I won’t test it. I would have to start Windows 11.
Nah, the background isn’t visible at all times. Need one of those desktop strippers that would walk-in over the system tray and start dancing naked in the corner of your screen.
I just looked up VirtuaGirl, and apparently it’s still a thing. Looks like someone even had it running through wine several years ago.
Step 1: Install Linux.
Arch btw.
I wish it were that easy. I’m pretty tech literate and I’ve had Linux installed on and off since the late 1990’s. I’m running fedora desktop on a dual boot machine that also has windows 10. The PC will run windows 11 but just like everyone else I’m not excited to upgrade.
But I still have to hop over to windows to do things. I know it’s a chicken and egg thing, but Linux just needs to get over the hump if ease of use and app availability.
Having to switch from. App1 to app1 that boat do say, CAD, is hard. It’s a learning curve. And add that learning curve into also switching to Linux and it’s overwhelming.
I actually got my dad on fedora, and he went all in and set it up, and worked quite diligently to get everything working for how he used his computer. He did this because his PC was fine but not windows 11 compatible. End the end there were just too many things that he struggled with and he broke down and bought a new PC that came with 11. One of the big issues he had was with documents. Syncing documents that he was editing.
He was OK relearning a new Libre Office but it was syncing it back to a Google drive or something that ultimately did not work for him. (I can’t remember exactly what he was doing).
He ran with Fedora for a couple months before giving up
Getting certain Windows apps to run on Linux is still impossible, unfortunately.
What I don’t understand is that file syncing is well supported. While I would never condone using a Google product, Celeste and Insync both support Google Drive. Aside from those, Dropbox has a native Linux package, and a self-hosted NAS is always a sound investment.
Ya, for my father (in his 70s) I was proud he gave it a real effort, but there were just too many changes and things that broke his workflow causing him to bail on it
I run a W10 LTSC VM on both my laptop and desktop for this purpose. I refuse to use Windows on bare metal, but I also understand that some software simply does not exist (nor functions under Wine) on Linux. Things like Adobe Acrobat, which I need for legal things from my lawyer for custody stuff, some vehicle diagnostic software, and software for my fucking labelmaker (Brother PT-D600, broken screen, will fix or replace eventually).
I highly recommend using an old laptop and keeping the windows machine. This allows you to fully use the linux laptop as your not booting back and forth. Further with these type of issues a “bleeding edge” distro like fedora is not ideal. My recommendation has always been zorin for a set it and forget it distro. Its an ubuntu spin that uses the stable release and tends to be a bit late even on that (which is most peoples complaint about it) but it is good at being stable and having everything you need out of box as well as emulating a basic windows feel.
Step 412: realize that there is no REAL alternative to Excel.
deleted by creator
What features of Excel do you use that warrants exclusivity? I’m genuinely curious.
Mountains and mountains of janky spaghetti code VBA macros. That’s the only answer left.
you can make do for office apps. try graphic design.
Just installed cachy on my partners PC. They just play games, I handle the maintenance.
So far they are impressed at how quick it feels and how fast and unintrusive the system updates are.
Love to hear these success stories and positive impressions and good vibes. Hope it lasts! 🥰
I have better things to do than spend hours trying to do simple things like permanent mounting of a network drive.
Doctors hate this one simple trick!
My favorites PoPOS. And learning linux can lead to a good paying job.
Watch as the Linux drones swarm in to drown out people seeking actual answers.
man with gaping wound in his skull pissed that people keep suggesting he go to a hospital.
“Just like I told you, insufferable hospital maxxis, I swear!”
More like:
Man broken down on the side of the road pissed at people in cars yelling “should have bought a Toyota!” as they drive by.
Does it matter? No. Is it annoying? Yes.
Does it matter? Yes! Goddamnit! I’ll buy a Toyota next time! FUCKING HELL!
Oh, this is actually based, they were right all along, holy fuck!
Sure bud.
Just lmao… https://i.imgur.com/mUwTITV.jpeg
The one thing keeping me from going all-in on Linux is the users being insufferable.
You’re seeing insufferable people who also happen to use Linux, as insufferable people also like to be early adopters so they can say they are different and therefore better.
There are plenty of super helpful people in the community, and Linux is well past the early adopter phase. The transition from Windows is smoother than it has ever been.
Man they must relaly hate the mass uptake. Makes them less special with every install.
(I keed, we all know they identity politic with the distros instead)
I think the Doctor Who fanbase is the actual worst out of all fanbases but I still like watching the show. you don’t have to participate in the community if you want to use something. I use Linux but I’m not wearing thigh high socks and sitting in the Arch discord all day.
But do you own the stockings?
yes when I installed Arch a week later a pair of stockings showed up in the mail oddly enough.
Unfortunately my experiences with linux tell me that i will have to engage with the community, because there will be shit i need to look up and fix fairly often.
Yes, a lot of Linux users are insufferable, but there are also people willing to help in a nice and normal manner …
Those are not the ones crawling out of the woodworks.
Saldy you are mostly right, bnut there are people like me who want to help (as far as I can)
You can just use linux. You don’t have to hang out with them.
Came here for the “use Linux” comments. Like clockwork. To be fair: I’m guilty of it too.
To be fair, removing the entire OS does disable this feature
And easier
Such a stupid feature
I seem to remember the feature was opt-in, right?
I’d check, but this hasn’t made it to my Copilot+ PC, despite all the fuss.
I was wondering why my gaming PC didn’t get the update yet… but then I remembered I installed the EU version of Windows on it… HA!
Microsoft is bringing an update to Copilot Vision for Windows Insiders
Unless you’re in the windows insider program nobody should have this feature yet.
Microsoft style opt-in probably. You can choose between Yes and Later
And no matter what you choose, they’ll silently enable it next month
Not how it’s worked with the rest of these features, for the record. I did get click-to-play, which is activated by default (but does nothing unless you trigger it manually). That’s just an entry in their increasingly large wall of “stuff you don’t want switches” in the Settings.
It’s immensely wasteful in terms of dev time, but at the same time, hey, kudos for having all this stuff centralized in the one list, unwieldy as it’s getting (at least there’s a search in there).
I wish we could talk like adults about these things over here, because there’s a ton of interesting nuance to how Windows 11 actually works, rather than the parody version that everybody loves to dunk on. There are some actually good features and choices I’d like to see make the jump to Linux and vice versa, even discounting things like hardware or software support. But nobody ever wants to have that conversation, it’s all just the serotonin shot chase from rooting for the home team (and/or being contrarian about it).
i want to have that conversation, tell me about the good features and choices
I’m not sure I buy your motivations, but hey, I can oblige regardless. What, top three small things from Windows I’d like on Linux and the other way around? Windows to Linux first?
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Hibernation and states across boots. I know people hate Windows power management on laptops, but at least on my last couple of desktops it’s been surprisingly robust. I can come back overnight to the same setup I left open, even if an update ran in the middle. Same windows, tabs, open documents… It even survives booting into Linux and then coming back just fine. KDE is taking some steps in this direction, but they’re a ways away. I hope they progress quickly on it.
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Scaling and multimonitor. It’s way better than it used to be, but there are still a ton of minor annoyances on Linux. KDE in particular has some issues with icon scaling on vertical taskbars, which you’d think would be easy to fix but have been there for a while now. Other pieces of software still struggle with consistent text and headers, too, especially on multimonitor setups with different fractional scaling. Say what you will about Windows’ look and feel (and I will in a sec), the compositing is super robust and flexible.
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Mounts! Network mounts in particular and Samba mounts specifically. You just click on them, authenticate and you can mount them as either a folder or a drive right from the context menu. On Linux, Dolphin will give you access to them the same way within itself, but they won’t be mounted to the fs in a predictable way, so it’s fine for copy/pasting stuff but it’s not good if you want to use them as local folders. And Windows will remember those mounts across sessions, authentication included. On Linux you need to edit fstab manually and keep a plaintext copy of your SMB password. It’s just so smooth on Windows.
So… Linux to Windows next?
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Just the snappy window movement, man. Linux feels so much lighter than Windows for no good reason. I also really like both Gnome’s more Mac-like desktop and KDE’s default “hold shift to tile” window snapping. Windows used to be the gold standard for window management without going full tiling but I’d say I prefer KDE now.
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Vertical taskbars/no taskbars. I don’t understand why Windows decided to force the taskbar to the bottom. It’s just absurd for ultrawide screens and inconvenient for tablets and touchscreens, or for screens with burn-in issues. I’d argue KDE overcorrects. You don’t need to have a dozen different docks per desktop, but it’s definitely better than zero options. And the top bar is great for touch and more reliable than sliding from the bottom edge to pop up a hidden taskbar on Windows.
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Remote desktop everywhere. Gnome in particular has fantastic out-of-the-box support. Windows’ version of this is actually very good, too, but the server is paywalled to the Pro license, which is hard to justify. And hey, I get it, they’re trying to monetize their OS but that’s actually worse, so…
Now, that was a tangent, but if more people want to share their top 3’s I’ll read them. What the hell.
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My first thought seeing this headline was “who cares I’m using Linux anyway” … My second thought was "Well I’m probably gonna start working in a mixed environment again soon and I’ll be the one who’ll have to disable Recall for the Users … So good to know
Watching Windows gets worse and worse is a lot more fun when you don’t have to use it. I use Mint btw.
The emails you write to people who use Windows are not private anymore too
Emails you write to literally anyone are no longer private the moment it leaves your outbox.
Well, unless you are one of the dozen people using gpg encryption.
That is not going to stop Windows Recall from screenshotting the message once decrypted.
What I mean is that you don’t have control over it anymore, whoever received it can show it to whoever and whatever they choose.
maybe sooner if you are using big tech webmail
Unless you used PGP or something, emails were never “private” in any meaningful sense of the word.
@knatschus @SaharaMaleikuhm This is an interesting take. I hope that Email Clients which supports GPG ( none Microsoft Products ) will also deny recall from function like brave does by default -> https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/23/brave/_browse/_block/_microsoft/_recall/
It would also be a interesting question if under GDPR companies need to tell you that they might have shared your emails with Microsoft because they enabled Recall ( if they so do ) …
So many questions …
It is sad to see the mental gymnastics people do to justify their inertia.
“It’s opt-in!”
“You can disable feature X easily by editing the registry”
“You can install this tool from a shifty site to restore that feature MS disabled”
I have almost none of the issues people complain about around here. For example, my install has no Recall to turn on if I wanted to. My only guess is that I used a vanilla ISO. And yes, it’s updated as of this morning.
Think you need an AI processor for it
My work laptop is a Surface 7 with that NPU (miss my Thinkpad T15 already), and it has absolutely zero “Recall” feature that I could find. Company uses W11 Enterprise though, so maybe that has something to do with it?
Yeah, your company IT department probably blocked it with group policy. I suspect most companies will do so if they care about security.
Fun for us. Not so fun for people who have to use it.
Debian Rolling here. Have used different distros and I dont judge anyone who wants to use Linux. Glad you made the switch.
LMDE here. No ragrets. Mint features, Debian stability, and none of the Canonical weirdness.
I really liked LMDE. I eventually moved to arch though because I’m a tinkerer at heart. If I need stability without constant updates though, a Debian based distro is my go-to. LMDE for a desktop, or just straight up Debian with no thrills for a server.
For my servers I also really liked Truenas scale and Proxmox, but if I need something generic I go with Debian as well yess
For the folks saying install Linux keep in mind you can indirectly be captured by this feature.
For example if you’re playing an online video game you’ll be captured or your chat messages in your messaging app.
Of course, the idea is that there’s less risk of that the more people switch.
You can’t convince 99% of windows users to switch, the real solution is done via legislation. The force of a government is more powerful any boycotts you can muster. (For example: European Union has been passing a regulations on right to repair, do privacy laws next)
Why not both? As Linux achieves more and more momentum, you are bound to see real change in how Microsoft treats its users.
Legislation is a poor way to force populations into changing away from something they choose to do/use. As the saying goes “It’s hard to talk someone out of something they weren’t talked into”.
Example: See France or Somalia
In this case the legislation would be used to ban recall and similar features, not to drive people away from windows.
That’s pretty easily avoidable, too. Don’t play online games, or talk to people. That’s what I do.
And Linux will actively help you avoid doing both of those things.
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Visit LinuxMint.com
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Press download
I don’t see that button my keyboard /s
Linux is great and all and I use it on several of my machines.
And if lay person just needs a computer to do basic things, internet, social media, stream, watch multimedia and the like it’s a great system. I have it on my multimedia PC we use only for entertainment consumption and my grammas laptop where she only watches streaming videos on.
But if someone needs it for anything else, graphic design gaming productivity development it’s much, much more difficult to use. I’m not saying it’s impossible but it’s much harder than just installing an exe on Windows and calling it a day.
And that’s unfortunately the catch with Linux is that it’s significantly less convenient to use than Windows.
For me personally when Windows 10 reaches its end of life I’m going to have to dule boot for regular computer usage to Linux and for gaming on windows 11. Something I really don’t want to do because all I want to do is just turn my computer onand be able to use it I don’t want to switch between operating systems but I realize that Windows 11 will be a privacy nightmare.
You do realize that most Steam games now work on the next natively correct? It’s true, not all do, but a lot of them do.
It’s gotten much better yes. But for some reason the majority of games that I play don’t have linux support. It’s a curse…
Eeh, with so many that do work that is super rotten luck
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By stop using Windows ???
Now to find a registry edit for the same thing.
PowerShell:
Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName "Recall" -RemoveI don’t trust pushing buttons when I want shit rooted out.
Thanks. I was going to look that up when I got to work.
But the terminal is scary…😭
Setting aside for the moment that it is a much better idea to just stop using windows. One of Microsofts arguments for why you shouldn’t continue using Windows 10 is because it will stop being updated and will soon be insecure and get inundated with malware, adware, spyware ect. But Windows 11 already comes preinstalled with all of that so what difference does it make?
You’re delusional if you think Microsoft’s preinstalled crap is at all comparable to what hackers will do with a vulnerable PC.
Also this feature in particular is only for AI PCs which your Win10 PC probably won’t upgrade to.
