Pushback on the Recall feature

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Update: June 13, 2024: Today, we are communicating an additional update on the Recall (preview) feature for Copilot+ PCs. Recall will now shift from a preview experience broadly available for Copilot+ PCs on June 18, 2024, to a preview available first in the Windows Insider Program (WIP) in the coming weeks. Following receiving feedback on Recall from our Windows Insider Community, as we typically do, we plan to make Recall (preview) available for all Copilot+ PCs coming soon.  

We are adjusting the release model for Recall to leverage the expertise of the Windows Insider community to ensure the experience meets our high standards for quality and security. This decision is rooted in our commitment to providing a trusted, secure and robust experience for all customers and to seek additional feedback prior to making the feature available to all Copilot+ PC users. Additionally, as we shared in our May 3 blog, security is our top priority at Microsoft, in line with our Secure Future Initiative (SFI). This is reflected in additional security protections we are providing for Recall content, including “just in time” decryption protected by Windows Hello Enhanced Sign-in Security (ESS), so Recall snapshots will only be decrypted and accessible when the user authenticates. The development of Copilot+ PCs, Recall and Windows will continue to be guided by SFI. 

When Recall (preview) becomes available in the Windows Insider Program, we will publish a blog post with details on how to get the preview. To try Recall (preview) WIP customers will need a Copilot+ PC due to our hardware requirements. We look forward to hearing Windows Insider feedback.  

Update on the Recall preview feature for Copilot+ PCs | Windows Experience Blog

In the short term, this is not a good look.  In the long term, it showcases that if enough of use freak out, Microsoft does listen to the marketplace.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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lmacri, Alex5723, PL1

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Blah. I’ve had enough of MS’s garbage. Cleaning up my system and going to Linux. Too old to deal with the garbage, and that’s what it is!

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Cybertooth, PKCano

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I should not have gone where?

I’m a realist.  You can’t move 80 or 90% of the marketplace over night.

And all of these vendors with their AI everywhere are going to get the same pushback.  It’s not just Microsoft.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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I should not have gone where?

That was the email I received when a moderator blew away my post from a bit back. Nothing to do with this.

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Cybertooth

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Recall: Dead on Arrival?

..For Microsoft, Recall is the main feature that makes Copilot+ PCs worth buying. The company has not revealed lots of other exclusive features that make these PCs special.

The only other feature that comes to mind is Automatic Super Resolution, which aims to improve the quality of media.

There is also a question that no one has answered yet. Who is going to benefit from Recall? The feature is very broad, capturing nearly everything by default that happens on a PC.

I cannot see many home or business users making use of it on a regular basis. Yes, it has a novelty factor and there are likely individual use cases that get a productivity boost out of it.

I think that Microsoft should reconsider its approach with Recall. Instead of using it to broadly capture everything, it could make Recall a feature that captures only content that is picked by the user or system administrator…

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Cybertooth

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Microsoft has decided to delay this Recall, facing overwhelmingly negative feedback.

They said the data will be stored locally only and will not be sent to Microsoft servers? I don’t believe it. Even if it is true now, all it needs to change its behavior is an update from Microsoft in the future, and I believe Microsoft will do this once scrutiny on this feature dies down.

Facing criticism over how the collected data was unencrypted and plain to see, now Microsoft said the collected data will be encrypted and will not be visible to others. I say that remains to be seen. Who knows if there is a backdoor?

This feature is currently limited to those Copilot+ PCs using Qualcomm CPUs and future Intel and AMD CPUs that contain a suitable neural processing unit (NPU). I say Microsoft will soon find a way to expand this feature to almost all compatible Windows 11 PCs even if those computers lack a NPU.

And now Recall will be opt-in rather than opt-out? I say Microsoft will want to change this back to opt-out in the future once sufficient “security” has been baked into the feature. It might even force-enable the feature on computers that users had chosen to disable it before, via a Windows update or feature update. After all, this is the feature that Microsoft wants users to use.

Put it simply, I don’t trust Microsoft about anything it said or will say about this feature. Even if what is being said about Recall is true now, that does not necessarily mean that it will still be true in the future as Microsoft continues to update it. Microsoft wants all Windows 11 users to use Recall, and it is only taking a step back right now because it decided that the criticisms about its lack of security must be addressed first.

Windows Central calls Recall a “PR Disaster”, and I have no sympathy for Microsoft whatsoever. In my opinion it deserves all the harsh criticisms coming its way about Recall.
https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/windows-11/microsoft-has-lost-trust-with-its-users-windows-recall-is-the-last-straw

If any of you choose to believe Microsoft about anything it said or will say about Recall, good for you. But I won’t, and don’t waste your time trying to convince me. Thank you.

Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst.

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Susan Bradley wrote:

I should not have gone where?

That’s on @cyberSAR’s signature line, not part of their comment.

Keep Running Windows 7 Safely for Years to Come  
Make Windows 10 look and work like Windows 7

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cyberSAR

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I removed it so as not to create confusion.

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Cybertooth

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Windows 11 Copilot+PC will be released without recall – Born’s Tech and Windows World blog

a big “PR disaster” by Microsoft as said in that blog

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lmacri, windbg, Cybertooth, Alex5723

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