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The initial announcement of the AI feature Recall for Windows caused quite an uproar in the security community. Microsoft's idea was to introduce an AI tool in Windows that would take a snapshot of the desktop every five seconds, analyze what it displayed to allow the user to interact with the AI about it. Problem was, in its hurry to get the AI feature out in the open, Microsoft forgot security. It turned out, that Recall was set to run by default, that the database that Recall used was not all that well protected. Additionally, despite Microsoft reassuring that Recall would not capture sensitive data, it turned out that it did (and still does). Third-party developers of security software have started to introduce anti-screenshot functionality into their apps. The latest to introduce such a feature are the developers of VeraCrypt, an open source encryption software. VeraCrypt 1.26.24, released on May 30th, 2025, introduces several changes and improvements. One of them is the new protection against screenshots and screen recordings on Windows. Any attempt to capture the VeryCrypt program window after installation of the update hides the program window on the desktop. I have tested this with several screen capturing options, including my favorite tool PicPick, the Snipping Tool, pressing the Print-key, and several more. This is the new default behavior. Windows users who do not want this may turn it off again. I had to turn the feature off to screenshot the new option in the VeryCrypt settings. Most users may want to keep it turned on, as it may also protect against malware running on the system that is designed to take screenshots. Here is how you disable the screenshot protection in VeraCrypt: Open the main VeraCrypt interface on the Windows system. Go to Settings > Performance / Driver configuration. Uncheck "Disable protection against screenshots and screen recording". Restart the PC. A restart is required to complete the process. Similarly, if you want to turn on the protection again, you need to restart the PC after checking the box in the settings to complete the process. The default behavior, the blocking of screenshots and screen recordings, can be changed with installation parameters. Just run the installer with the parameter DISABLESCREENPROTECTION=1 to disable the security feature. Closing Words The new screen protection feature is a welcome addition to VeraCrypt. Most users are not affected by the change, at least not negatively. Those who are can turn off the security feature at any time to restore the old status quo. Now You: what is your take on apps implementing screenshot protections? Good security feature or something that you do not find useful? Feel free to leave a comment down below. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of May): 2,377 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Signal has introduced a new feature called Screen security, and you can thank Microsoft for it. The option disables screenshots from being captured on Windows 11. Signal announced the news on its blog, highlighting the need for such a feature, to block Windows Recall from capturing snapshots of its app. This move aims to bolster privacy and security for users of the end-to-end encrypted messaging app. Windows Recall, which is currently available on Copilot+ PCs, captures snapshots of the screen every few seconds, allowing for the analysis of previously worked content via a searchable database save on the user's computer. However, concerns over privacy led Microsoft to make adjustments, including requiring Windows Hello for its use. Signal's decision to implement the Screen security feature comes as a response to these privacy concerns. The privacy-focussed messaging service says that, even with Microsoft's changes to Windows Recall, content displayed in privacy-focused applications like Signal could still be at risk. To protect its users, Signal felt compelled to add an extra layer of security, even if that meant introducing some usability trade-offs. Attempts to capture a screenshot when the feature is enabled will simply result in a black screen. The technology behind Signal's screen security is similar to the DRM protection that is used by streaming services like Netflix, which also blocks screenshots of protected content. However, there are some drawbacks to this feature. Users who rely on accessibility tools such as screen readers or magnification software may find compatibility issues. The feature is rolling out to users, and is enabled by default. You may opt to disable it manually from the following location: Signal Settings > Privacy > Screen security. However, the messaging service also pointed out that since the option is hidden behind two menus, it is not easy to accidentally disable the screen security feature. The ability to disable or uninstall Windows Recall remains, as users can navigate through "Privacy & Security" settings to manage snapshot functionalities. Signal criticized Microsoft for launching Recall without offering app developers options to granular settings to protect the privacy of users. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of April): 1,811 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Even after its refurbishing, Recall provides few ways to exclude specific apps. Signal Messenger is warning the users of its Windows Desktop version that the privacy of their messages is under threat by Recall, the AI tool rolling out in Windows 11 that will screenshot, index, and store almost everything a user does every three seconds. Effective immediately, Signal for Windows will by default block the ability of Windows to screenshot the app. Signal users who want to disable the block—for instance to preserve a conversation for their records or make use of accessibility features for sight-impaired users—will have to change settings inside their desktop version to enable screenshots. My kingdom for an API “Although Microsoft made several adjustments over the past twelve months in response to critical feedback, the revamped version of Recall still places any content that’s displayed within privacy-preserving apps like Signal at risk,” Signal officials wrote Wednesday. “As a result, we are enabling an extra layer of protection by default on Windows 11 in order to help maintain the security of Signal Desktop on that platform even though it introduces some usability trade-offs. Microsoft has simply given us no other option.” When Recall was introduced in May 2024, security and privacy practitioners quickly warned that it created undue risks for both Windows users and those using other platforms who interact with Windows users. Many of the criticisms were based on specific designs. Recall was turned on by default. Screenshots and OCR data were stored in plaintext, where it could be accessed by any app with user system rights. It provided few granular tools to limit the type of content that was sucked into its massive vacuum bag of data. After facing one of its worst PR disasters in recent memory, Microsoft pulled Recall out of Windows 11 previews a few months after adding it. Then, last month, Microsoft reintroduced a significantly overhauled version of the tool. As Ars Senior Technology Reporter Andrew Cunningham painstakingly documented a few weeks later, the refurbished Recall went to great lengths to correct some of the poorly thought-through designs in the first iteration. Recall was now opt-in, rather than on by default. The database storing Recall data was now encrypted, with the keys secured in a secure enclave separate from Windows. And the tool now provided some level of user control to limit the type of content it indexed. But the changes go only so far in limiting the risks Recall poses. As I pointed out, when Recall is turned on, it indexes Zoom meetings, emails, photos, medical conditions, and—yes—Signal conversations, not just with the user, but anyone interacting with that user, without their knowledge or consent. Researcher Kevin Beaumont performed his own deep-dive analysis that also found that some of the new controls were lacking. For instance, Recall continued to screenshot his payment card details. It also decrypted the database with a simple fingerprint scan or PIN. And it's unclear whether the type of sophisticated malware that routinely infects consumer and enterprise Windows users will be able to decrypt encrypted database contents. And as Cunningham also noted, Beaumont found that Microsoft still provided no means for developers to prevent content displayed in their apps from being indexed. That left Signal developers at a disadvantage, so they had to get creative. With no API for blocking Recall in the Windows Desktop version, Signal is instead invoking an API Microsoft provides for protecting copyrighted material. App developers can turn on the DRM setting to prevent Windows from taking screenshots of copyrighted content displayed in the app. Signal is now repurposing the API to add an extra layer of privacy. “We hope that the AI teams building systems like Recall will think through these implications more carefully in the future,” Signal wrote Wednesday. “Apps like Signal shouldn’t have to implement ‘one weird trick’ in order to maintain the privacy and integrity of their services without proper developer tools. People who care about privacy shouldn’t be forced to sacrifice accessibility upon the altar of AI aspirations either.” Signal's move will lessen the chances of Recall permanently indexing private messages, but it also has its limits. The measure only provides protection when all parties to a chat—at least those using the Windows Desktop version—haven't changed the default settings. Microsoft officials didn’t immediately respond to an email asking why Windows provides developers with no granular control over Recall and whether the company has plans to add any. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of April): 1,811 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Microsoft is finally ready to ship its flagship AI feature for Windows 11, plus a few more on top of it. Recall, Click to Do, and AI-powered Windows Search are now rolling out to users with supported Copilot+ PCs. Microsoft planned to launch Recall in mid-2024, but the company was quickly forced to halt the rollout due to a number of privacy concerns. Microsoft took the feature down, and after a few months of radio silence, started testing Recall in the insider program. Since then, Recall has received multiple security and feature improvements for a better user experience. For those unfamiliar with the feature, Recall works like a time machine for everything you do on your PC. It works by taking snapshots of your apps, websites, and other content so that you can retrace your steps and find anything you need using your own words. Microsoft says that with Recall, it takes "up to 70% less time to reengage with your PowerPoint presentation." For example, instead of remembering the exact file name, you can just ask Recall to find that PowerPoint presentation about elephants, and it will get you right to it. Microsoft understands that not everyone wants to allow Windows 11 to capture everything that is happening on the screen. For this reason, the company made Recall a strict opt-in experience that is turned off by default. It also uses clear language when asking if the user wants to enable Recall during the initial setup. More importantly, all the data that Recall captures is stored locally. It is also fully encrypted, isolated, and protected with Windows Hello. In addition to Recall, Copilot+ PC users are getting Click to Do. This feature offers contextual shortcuts to relevant actions like page summarization, text rewriting, copying images or text, and more. You can invoke Click to Do by pressing the Win key and making a click, swiping from the right on a touchscreen-enabled computer, or using a dedicated button in various apps like Snipping Tool. Finally, Copilot+ PCs now have improved Windows Search, which allows you to find files by simply describing what you are looking for. It can understand the contextual meaning of your request to bring you images, documents, or settings in Windows Search, File Explorer search, and the Settings app. The new AI-powered experiences for Copilot+ PCs are rolling out as part of the April 2025 non-security preview update. It is an optional release, so if you want to get it, go to Settings > Windows Update, toggle the "Get the latest updates as soon as they're available" option, and then check for available updates. Note that while Click to Do image actions are available to all Copilot+ PCs, text actions are rolling out only to Snapdragon-powered devices. Also, Recall and Click to Do are not currently available to users in the European Economic Area. Microsoft says it is working on releasing those features in Europe later this year. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of March): 1,357 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

The improved Recall still tries to record everything you do on your PC. Nearly a year after announcing the feature, Microsoft is finally ready to roll the controversial Windows Recall feature out to the general public, the company announced today on its Windows Experience Blog. Only available on Copilot+ PCs, a subset of Windows 11 systems sold within the last year or so, Recall takes continuous screenshots of everything you do on your PC, saving them, scraping text from them, and saving it all in a searchable database. This obviously has major security and privacy implications—anyone who can get access to your Recall database can see nearly everything you've done on your PC—which is why Microsoft's initial rollout attempt was such a mess. Recall's long road to release involved a rushed initial almost-launch, harsh criticism of its (then mostly nonexistent) security protections, multiple delays, a major under-the-hood overhaul, and five months of testing in Microsoft's Windows Insider beta program. Microsoft signaled that Recall was nearly ready for release two weeks ago when it came to the near-final Release Preview channel. Testing of the new version of Recall, both by Ars and other security researchers, found that the company had addressed many of the substantive complaints about Recall's security and added better automated content filtering to help keep the feature from storing some kinds of sensitive information (though this filtering is still inconsistent). But most significantly, Microsoft has made Recall a feature you must opt in to using rather than opt out of using, and it's possible to remove it completely. Recall is the most high-profile feature in the release Microsoft is starting to roll out today, but there are a few other changes in it for Copilot+ PCs. One is a new version of Windows' Search function, which "can understand the contextual meaning of words or phrases, making search more natural and intuitive." This natural-language search can be used in the Search box in the Taskbar, in File Explorer, and in the Settings app. Another new feature, called "Click to Do," lets you copy text from images, search the content on your screen, and quickly summarize or rewrite on-screen text (you can invoke it by pressing the Windows key and then clicking, hence Click to Do). Copilot+ PCs have specific hardware requirements beyond the ones necessary to run Windows 11. The most significant is the requirement for a neural processing unit (NPU) that can process more than 40 trillion operations per second (TOPS). The NPU enables more processing of AI and machine learning models on-device so that these features can work more quickly and without sending sensitive personal information to Microsoft's servers. The only consumer processors that currently support Copilot+ are Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite and Plus chips, Intel's Core Ultra 200V-series laptop chips (codenamed Lunar Lake), and AMD's Ryzen AI 300 series. Copilot+ features have generally been coming to the Arm-based Qualcomm PCs first and to x86-based Intel and AMD PCs later; Recall and the improved Search are available for both Arm and x86 PCs, while some Click to Do features are currently only available for Arm systems. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of March): 1,357 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Original botched launch still haunts new version of data-scraping AI feature. Microsoft is preparing to reintroduce Recall to Windows 11. A feature limited to Copilot+ PCs—a label that just a fraction of a fraction of Windows 11 systems even qualify for—Recall has been controversial in part because it builds an extensive database of text and screenshots that records almost everything you do on your PC. But the main problem with the initial version of Recall—the one that was delayed at the last minute after a large-scale outcry from security researchers, reporters, and users—was not just that it recorded everything you did on your PC but that it was a rushed, enabled-by-default feature with gaping security holes that made it trivial for anyone with any kind of access to your PC to see your entire Recall database. It made no efforts to automatically exclude sensitive data like bank information or credit card numbers, offering just a few mechanisms to users to manually exclude specific apps or websites. It had been built quickly, outside of the normal extensive Windows Insider preview and testing process. And all of this was happening at the same time that the company was pledging to prioritize security over all other considerations, following several serious and highly public breaches. Any coverage of the current version of Recall should mention what has changed since then. Recall is being rolled out to Microsoft’s Windows Insider Release Preview channel after months of testing in the more experimental and less-stable channels, just like most other Windows features. It’s turned off by default and can be removed from Windows root-and-branch by users and IT administrators who don’t want it there. Microsoft has overhauled the feature's underlying security architecture, encrypting data at rest so it can't be accessed by other users on the PC, adding automated filters to screen out sensitive information, and requiring frequent reauthentication with Windows Hello anytime a user accesses their own Recall database. Testing how Recall works I installed the Release Preview Windows 11 build with Recall on a Snapdragon X Elite version of the Surface Laptop and a couple of Ryzen AI PCs, which all have NPUs fast enough to support the Copilot+ features. No Windows PCs without this NPU will offer Recall or any other Copilot+ features—that's every single PC sold before mid-2024 and the vast majority of PCs since then. Users may come up with ways to run those features on unsupported hardware some other way. But by default, Recall isn't something most of Windows' current user base will have to worry about. Microsoft is taking data protection more seriously this time around. If Windows Hello isn't enabled or drive encryption isn't turned on, Recall will refuse to start working until you fix the issues. Credit: Andrew Cunningham After installing the update, you'll see a single OOBE-style setup screen describing Recall and offering to turn it on; as promised, it is now off by default until you opt in. And even if you accept Recall on this screen, you have to opt in a second time as part of the Recall setup to actually turn the feature on. We'll be on high alert for a bait-and-switch when Microsoft is ready to remove Recall's "preview" label, whenever that happens, but at least for now, opt-in means opt-in. Enable Recall, and the snapshotting begins. As before, it's storing two things: actual screenshots of the active area of your screen, minus the taskbar, and a searchable database of text that it scrapes from those screenshots using OCR. Somewhat oddly, there are limits on what Recall will offer to OCR for you; even if you're using multiple apps onscreen at the same time, only the active, currently-in-focus app seems to have its text scraped and stored. This is also more or less how Recall handles multi-monitor support; only the active display has screenshots taken, and only the active window on the active display is OCR'd. This does prevent Recall from taking gigabytes and gigabytes of screenshots of static or empty monitors, though it means the app may miss capturing content that updates passively if you don't interact with those windows periodically. Recall doing its thing. OCR'd text can be copied and pasted, and you can interact with images, too. Andrew Cunningham Only the active window is OCR'd in Recall (here, the Explorer window), even when multiple apps are visible in a single snapshot. This is also how multi-monitor support is handled; only the active desktop is being snapshotted at any given time. Andrew Cunningham Recall's settings. There are some options here for how long to keep snapshots and how much space you want to let them use. Andrew Cunningham You can still manually exclude certain apps and sites, in addition to the automated filtering Microsoft has added. Andrew Cunningham All of this OCR'd text is fully searchable and can be copied directly from Recall to be pasted somewhere else. Recall will also offer to open whatever app or website is visible in the screenshot, and it gives you the option to delete that specific screenshot and all screenshots from specific apps (handy, if you decide you want to add an entire app to your filtering settings and you want to get rid of all existing snapshots of it). Here are some basic facts about how Recall works on a PC since there's a lot of FUD circulating about this, and much of the information on the Internet is about the older, insecure version from last year: Recall is per-user. Setting up Recall for one user account does not turn on Recall for all users of a PC. Recall does not require a Microsoft account. Recall does not require an Internet connection or any cloud-side processing to work. Recall does require your local disk to be encrypted with Device Encryption/BitLocker. Recall does require Windows Hello and either a fingerprint reader or face-scanning camera for setup, though once it's set up, it can be unlocked with a Windows Hello PIN. Windows Hello authentication happens every time you open the Recall app. Using a Windows Hello PIN to unlock Recall is available as a fallback option, but you cannot set up Recall without having a fingerprint or face scan registered. Enabling Recall and changing its settings does not require an administrator account. Recall can be uninstalled entirely by unchecking it in the legacy Windows Features control panel (you can also search for "turn Windows features on and off"). If you read our coverage of the initial version, there's a whole lot about how Recall functions that's essentially the same as it was before. In Settings, you can see how much storage the feature is using and limit the total amount of storage Recall can use. The amount of time a snapshot can be kept is normally determined by the amount of space available, not by the age of the snapshot, but you can optionally choose a second age-based expiration date for snapshots (options range from 30 to 180 days). You can see Recall hit the system's NPU periodically every time it takes a snapshot (this is on an AMD Ryzen AI system, but it should be the same for Qualcomm Snapdragon PCs and Intel Core Ultra/Lunar Lake systems). Browsing your Recall database doesn't use the NPU. Credit: Andrew Cunningham It's also possible to delete the entire database or all recent snapshots (those from the past hour, past day, past week, or past month), toggle the automated filtering of sensitive content, or add specific apps and websites you'd like to have filtered. Recall can temporarily be paused by clicking the system tray icon (which is always visible when you have Recall turned on), and it can be turned off entirely in Settings. Neither of these options will delete existing snapshots; they just stop your PC from creating new ones. The amount of space Recall needs to do its thing will depend on a bunch of factors, including how actively you use your PC and how many things you filter out. But in my experience, it can easily generate a couple of hundred megabytes per day of images. A Ryzen system with a 1TB SSD allocated 150GB of space to Recall snapshots by default, but even a smaller 25GB Recall database could easily store a few months of data. Fixes: Improved filtering, encryption at rest For apps and sites that you know you don't want to end up in Recall, you can manually add them to the exclusion lists in the Settings app. As a rule, major browsers running in private or incognito modes are also generally not snapshotted. If you have an app that's being filtered onscreen for any reason—even if it's onscreen at the same time as an app that's not being filtered, Recall won't take pictures of your desktop at all. I ran an InPrivate Microsoft Edge window next to a regular window, and Microsoft's solution is just to avoid capturing and storing screenshots entirely rather than filtering or blanking out the filtered app or site in some way. This is probably the best way to do it! It minimizes the risk of anything being captured accidentally just because it's running in the background, for example. But it could mean you don't end up capturing much in Recall at all if you're frequently mixing filtered and unfiltered apps. The Recall tray icon is always visible when the service is running, just so you're always aware of it. Sometimes it will show you snapshot previews here if you've opened the Recall app and unlocked it recently, but usually these previews are blurred because Windows Hello is protecting them. Andrew Cunningham When anything is being filtered for any reason, the tray icon changes and you get a status message here, but Recall doesn't tell you what is being filtered or why. Andrew Cunningham New to this version of Recall is an attempt at automated content filtering to address one of the major concerns about the original iteration of Recall—that it can capture and store sensitive information like credit card numbers and passwords. This filtering is based on the technology Microsoft uses for Microsoft Purview Information Protection, an enterprise feature used to tag sensitive information on business, healthcare, and government systems. This automated content filtering is hit and miss. Recall wouldn't take snapshots of a webpage with a visible credit card field, or my online banking site, or an image of my driver's license, or a recent pay stub, or of the Bitwarden password manager while viewing credentials. But I managed to find edge cases in less than five minutes, and you'll be able to find them, too; Recall saved snapshots showing a recent check, with the account holder's name, address, and account and routing numbers visible, and others testing it have still caught it recording credit card information in some cases. The automated filtering is still a big improvement from before, when it would capture this kind of information indiscriminately. But things will inevitably slip through, and the automated filtering won't help at all with other kinds of data; Recall will take pictures of email and messaging apps without distinguishing between what's sensitive (school information for my kid, emails about Microsoft's own product embargoes) and what isn't. The upshot is that if you capture months and months and gigabytes and gigabytes of Recall data on your PC, it's inevitable that it will capture something you probably wouldn't want to be preserved in an easily searchable database. One issue is that there's no easy way to check and confirm what Recall is and isn't filtering without actually scrolling through the database and checking snapshots manually. The system tray status icon does change to display a small triangle and will show you a "some content is being filtered" status message when something is being filtered, but the system won't tell you what it is; I have some kind of filtered app or browser tab open somewhere right now, and I have no idea which one it is because Windows won't tell me. That any attempt at automated filtering is hit-and-miss should be expected, but more transparency would help instill trust and help users fine-tune their filtering settings. Recall's files are still clearly visible and trivial to access, but with one improvement: They're all actually encrypted now. Credit: Andrew Cunningham Microsoft also seems to have fixed the single largest problem with Recall: previously, all screenshots and the entire text database were stored in plaintext with zero encryption. It was technically, usually encrypted, insofar as the entire SSD in a modern PC is encrypted when you sign into a Microsoft account or enable Bitlocker, but any user with any kind of access to your PC (either physical or remote) could easily grab those files and view them anywhere with no additional authentication necessary. This is fixed now. Recall's entire file structure is available for anyone to look at, stored away in the user’s AppData folder in a directory called CoreAIPlatform.00\UKP. Other administrators on the same PC can still navigate to these folders from a different user account and move or copy the files. Encryption renders them (hypothetically) unreadable. Microsoft has gone into some detail about exactly how it's protecting and storing the encryption keys used to encrypt these files—the company says "all encryption keys [are] protected by a hypervisor or TPM." Rate-limiting and "anti-hammering" protections are also in place to protect Recall data, though I kind of have to take Microsoft at its word on that one. That said, I don't love that it's still possible to get at those files at all. It leaves open the possibility that someone could theoretically grab a few megabytes' worth of data. But it's now much harder to get at that data, and better filtering means what is in there should be slightly less all-encompassing. Lingering technical issues As we mentioned already, Microsoft's automated content filtering is hit-and-miss. Certainly, there's a lot of stuff that the original version of Recall would capture that the new one won't, but I didn't have to work hard to find corner-cases, and you probably won't, either. Turning Recall on still means assuming risk and being comfortable with the data and authentication protections Microsoft has implemented. We'd also like there to be a way for apps to tell Recall to exclude them by default, which would be useful for password managers, encrypted messaging apps, and any other software where privacy is meant to be the point. Yes, users can choose to exclude these apps from Recall backups themselves. But as with Recall itself, opting in to having that data collected would be preferable to needing to opt out. You need a fingerprint reader or face-scanning camera to get Recall set up, but once it is set up, anyone with your PIN and access to your PC can get in and see all your stuff. Credit: Andrew Cunningham Another issue is that, while Recall does require a fingerprint reader or face-scanning camera when you set it up the very first time, you can unlock it with a Windows Hello PIN after it's already going. Microsoft has said that this is meant to be a fallback option in case you need to access your Recall database and there's some kind of hardware issue with your fingerprint sensor. But in practice, it feels like too easy a workaround for a domestic abuser or someone else with access to your PC and a reason to know your PIN (and note that the PIN also gets them into your PC in the first place, so encryption isn't really a fix for this). It feels like too broad a solution for a relatively rare problem. Security researcher Kevin Beaumont, whose testing helped call attention to the problems with the original version of Recall last year, identified this as one of Recall's biggest outstanding technical problems. "In my opinion, requiring devices to have enhanced biometrics with Windows Hello  but then not requiring said biometrics to actually access Recall snapshots is a big problem," Beaumont wrote. "It will create a false sense of security in customers and false downstream advertising about the security of Recall." Beaumont also noted that, while the encryption on the Recall snapshots and database made it a "much, much better design," "all hell would break loose" if attackers ever worked out a way to bypass this encryption. "Microsoft know this and have invested in trying to stop it by encrypting the database files, but given I live in the trenches where ransomware groups are running around with zero days in Windows on an almost monthly basis nowadays, where patches arrive months later... Lord, this could go wrong," he wrote. But most of what’s wrong with Recall is harder to fix Microsoft has actually addressed many of the specific, substantive Recall complaints raised by security researchers and our own reporting. It's gone through the standard Windows testing process and has been available in public preview in its current form since late November. And yet the knee-jerk reaction to Recall news is still generally to treat it as though it were the same botched, bug-riddled software that nearly shipped last summer. Some of this is the asymmetrical nature of how news spreads on the Internet—without revealing traffic data, I'll just say that articles about Recall having problems have been read many, many more times by many more people than pieces about the steps Microsoft has taken to fix Recall. The latter reports simply aren't being encountered by many of the minds Microsoft needs to change. But the other problem goes deeper than the technology itself and gets back to something I brought up in my first Recall preview nearly a year ago—regardless of how it is architected and regardless of how many privacy policies and reassurances the company publishes, people simply don't trust Microsoft enough to be excited about "the feature that records and stores every single thing you do with your PC." Recall continues to demand an extraordinary level of trust that Microsoft hasn't earned. However secure and private it is—and, again, the version people will actually get is much better than the version that caused the original controversy—it just feels creepy to open up the app and see confidential work materials and pictures of your kid. You're already trusting Microsoft with those things any time you use your PC, but there's something viscerally unsettling about actually seeing evidence that your computer is tracking you, even if you're not doing anything you're worried about hiding, even if you've excluded certain apps or sites, and even if you "know" that part of the reason why Recall requires a Copilot+ PC is because it's processing everything locally rather than on a server somewhere. This was a problem that Microsoft made exponentially worse by screwing up the Recall rollout so badly in the first place. Recall made the kind of ugly first impression that it's hard to dig out from under, no matter how thoroughly you fix the underlying problems. It's Windows Vista. It's Apple Maps. It's the Android tablet. And in doing that kind of damage to Recall (and possibly also to the broader Copilot+ branding project), Microsoft has practically guaranteed that many users will refuse to turn it on or uninstall it entirely, no matter how it actually works or how well the initial problems have been addressed. Unfortunately, those people probably have it right. I can see no signs that Recall data is as easily accessed or compromised as before or that Microsoft is sending any Recall data from my PC to anywhere else. But today's Microsoft has earned itself distrust-by-default from many users, thanks not just to the sloppy Recall rollout but also to the endless ads and aggressive cross-promotion of its own products that dominate modern Windows versions. That's the kind of problem you can't patch your way out of. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of March): 1,357 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Snapshotting and AI processing a screen every 3 seconds. What could possibly go wrong? Security and privacy advocates are girding themselves for another uphill battle against Recall, the AI tool rolling out in Windows 11 that will screenshot, index, and store everything a user does every three seconds. When Recall was first introduced in May 2024, security practitioners roundly castigated it for creating a gold mine for malicious insiders, criminals, or nation-state spies if they managed to gain even brief administrative access to a Windows device. Privacy advocates warned that Recall was ripe for abuse in intimate partner violence settings. They also noted that there was nothing stopping Recall from preserving sensitive disappearing content sent through privacy-protecting messengers such as Signal. Enshittification at a new scale Following months of backlash, Microsoft later suspended Recall. On Thursday, the company said it was reintroducing Recall. It currently is available only to insiders with access to the Windows 11 Build 26100.3902 preview version. Over time, the feature will be rolled out more broadly. Microsoft officials wrote: Microsoft is hoping that the concessions requiring opt-in and the ability to pause Recall will help quell the collective revolt that broke out last year. It likely won’t for various reasons. First, even if User A never opts in to Recall, they have no control over the setting on the machines of Users B through Z. That means anything User A sends them will be screenshotted, processed with optical character recognition and Copilot AI, and then stored in an indexed database on the other users’ devices. That would indiscriminately hoover up all kinds of User A's sensitive material, including photos, passwords, medical conditions, and encrypted videos and messages. As Privacy Guides writer Em wrote on Mastodon: Important Warning About Windows Recall : If you communicate with someone who might be using the upcoming Microsoft's Windows Recall feature, be extremely careful about what information you share with them. Regardless of what secure application you use, be especially careful about sending: - Intimate photos - Passwords or other sensitive information - Medical conditions - Personal details, even through secure emails or secure encrypted chats - Financial information - Video chats, even encrypted ones This feature will unfortunately extract your information from whatever secure software you might have used and store it on this person's computer in a possibly less secure way. Of course this person could manually take a screenshot of all of this anyway, but this feature makes it that even a well-intentioned person might either not be aware it is on, or might wrongly assume it is secure enough. This feature isn't fully released yet, but it might be soon. The presence of an easily searchable database capturing a machine’s every waking moment would also be a bonanza for others who don’t have users’ best interests at heart. That level of detailed archival material will undoubtedly be subject to subpoena by lawyers and governments. Threat actors who manage to get their spyware installed on a device will no longer have to scour it for the most sensitive data stored there. Instead they will mine Recall just as they do browser databases storing passwords now. Microsoft didn’t immediately respond to a message asking why it’s reintroducing Recall less than a year after the feature got such a chilly reception. For critics, Recall is likely to remain one of the most pernicious examples of enshittification, the recently minted term for the shoehorning of unwanted AI and other features into existing products when there is negligible benefit to users. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of March): 1,357 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

The long-delayed feature will begin gradually rolling out to Windows Insiders. Microsoft is starting to gradually roll out a preview of Recall, its feature that captures screenshots of what you do on a Copilot Plus PC to find again later, to Windows Insiders, according to a blog post published Thursday. This new rollout could indicate that Microsoft is finally getting close to launching Recall more widely. Microsoft originally intended to launch Recall alongside Copilot Plus PCs last June, but the feature was delayed following concerns raised by security experts. The company then planned to launch it in October, but that got pushed as well so that the company could deliver “a secure and trusted experience.” The company did release a preview of Recall in November to Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel for Qualcomm Copilot Plus PCs and made a preview available to Intel- and AMD-powered Copilot Plus PC shortly after. And after a couple weeks of testing, my colleague Tom Warren said that Recall is “creepy, clever, and compelling.” In Thursday’s blog post, Microsoft spells out that you have to opt in to saving snapshots with Recall, and you can pause saving them “at any time.” Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of March): 1,357 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

After upgrading to Windows 11 2024 Update, use this guide to learn and start using Windows Recall. On Windows 11 version 24H2 (2024 Update), Windows Recall is a new feature powered by AI that tracks and remembers anything you have done on the computer. This feature can be thought of as a photographic memory. It works by taking screenshots of your on-screen activities every few seconds, using several on-device AI models to analyze the information, and making everything searchable using natural language with the "Recall" app. Although, for the most part, the feature is straightforward, it's important to get familiar with the new interface and settings to get the most out of the experience. It's important to note that this feature is exclusive to Copilot+ PCs powered by the latest AI processors from Qualcomm, AMD, and Intel, and it comes disabled by default. Also, at the time of this writing, the feature is only available as a preview through the Windows Insider Program. In this how-to guide, I will explain the steps you need to know to start using the Windows Recall feature the right way on Windows 11. How to configure and manage settings on Windows Recall If you have a Copilot+ PC, the operating system offers various settings to manage Windows Recall, including the ability to opt in or out of the feature, change storage allocation, delete snapshots, and filter apps and websites. Opt-in and out Windows 11 won't automatically turn on the Recall AI feature on your computer. It will be up to you to decide. To turn Windows Recall on or off, use these steps: Open Settings. Click on Privacy & security. Click the Recall & snapshots page from the right side. (Image credit: Mauro Huculak) (Option 1) Turn on the "Save snapshots" toggle switch to enable the feature. (Image credit: Mauro Huculak) (Option 2) Turn off the "Save snapshots" toggle switch to disable the feature. Once you complete the steps, the feature will run or stay disabled, according to your configuration. You can also turn on the feature by launching the "Recall" app and opting in to save snapshots on your computer. Change storage settings Windows Recall, by default, reserves 25GB of storage on devices with a 256 GB SSD, 75GB for a 512GB SSD, and 150GB for a 1TB SSD. However, you can increase or decrease the allocation with the instructions below. To change the storage allocation for Windows Recall, use these steps: Open Settings. Click on Privacy & security. Click the Recall & snapshots page from the right side. (Image credit: Mauro Huculak) Click the Storage setting. Choose the storage allocation size using the "Maximum storage for snapshots" setting. (Image credit: Mauro Huculak) (Optional) Click the "View system storage" settings to open the Storage settings to view the drive usage of Recall AI. Quick tip: The Storage settings in the "Recall & snapshots" page show this information. Choose the data retention time range (Unlimited, 30, 60, 90, or 180 days) in the "Maximum storage duration for snapshots" setting. (Image credit: Mauro Huculak) After you complete the steps, the system will apply the new storage allocation. Delete snapshots Windows Recall takes screenshots every few seconds to analyze the activity on the screen and build the new Windows Semantic Search. However, since these snapshots can hold sensitive data, Microsoft has built a control that allows you to delete some or every snapshot the feature has taken and store it on your computer. To delete Windows Recall snapshots on Windows 11, use these steps: Open Settings. Click on Privacy & security. Click the Recall & snapshots page from the right side. (Image credit: Mauro Huculak) Click the Delete setting. (Option 1) Choose the timeframe to delete snapshots from the "Delete snapshots from a specific timeframe" setting. Click the Delete snapshots button. (Image credit: Mauro Huculak) Click the Delete button again to confirm. (Option 2) Click the "Delete all" button to remove the snapshots stored on your computer. (Image credit: Mauro Huculak) Click the Delete button again to confirm. Once you complete the steps, the Recall data will be deleted according to your configuration. Filter sensitive information As part of the strategy to improve privacy and security, Recall AI includes a feature to detect and filter out sensitive information, such as passwords, credit cards, etc., the feature should be turned on by default, but you can always manage the option from the "Recall & snapshots" settings. To enable or disable the filter for sensitive information, use these steps: Open Settings. Click on Privacy & security. Click the Recall & snapshots page from the right side. (Image credit: Mauro Huculak) (Option 1) Turn on the "Filter sensitive information" toggle switch to enable the feature. (Image credit: Mauro Huculak) (Option 2) Turn off the "Filter sensitive information" toggle switch to disable the feature. Once you complete the steps, the feature will stop saving snapshots with sensitive information on your computer. Filter apps from Recall Although Windows Recall records virtually everything you do on your computer, the company is also adding a couple of settings to filter specific apps and websites from being part of the experience. However, by default, the feature won't monitor activities when you use a Chromium-based web browser, such as Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome, and browsers like Mozilla Firefox and Opera, in InPrivate or Incognito mode. Also, Windows Recall doesn't snapshot anything with DRM (Digital Rights Management). To exclude apps from being recorded by Windows Recall, use these steps: Open Settings. Click on Privacy & security. Click the Recall & snapshots page from the right side. (Image credit: Mauro Huculak) Click the Add app button to filter an app. (Image credit: Mauro Huculak) Select the app from the list. Click the Add button. (Image credit: Mauro Huculak) You can remove apps using the same instructions, but in step 4, click on the "Apps to filter" setting and click the "Remove" button for the app you want to remove. Filter websites from Recall To exclude websites from being recorded by Windows Recall, use these steps: Open Settings. Click on Privacy & security. Click the Recall & snapshots page from the right side. (Image credit: Mauro Huculak) Click the Add website button to filter an app. (Image credit: Mauro Huculak) Confirm the website to exclude. Click the Add button. (Image credit: Mauro Huculak) You can remove apps using the same instructions, but in step 4, click on the "Websites to filter" setting and click the "Remove" button for the website you want to remove. It's important to note that if you are using an incognito window or a website or an app that has been excluded, and you click the "Now" button, the feature will take a snapshot of the contents. However, these snapshots will be stored temporarily in the "Temp" folder of your account and then deleted when you jump to another snapshot. Pause and resume It's also possible to pause and resume the Recall snapshots with these instructions: Click the Windows Recall button from the System Tray. (Option 1) Click the "Pause until tomorrow" button to turn off the feature until the next day at 12AM. (Image credit: Mauro Huculak) (Option 2) Click the "Resume snapshots" button to manually turn on the feature. In the Recall flyout menu, you will also find the last snapshot that the feature has taken and its status. You can also click the "More Recall & snapshots settings" to open the feature page in the Settings app. How to search and find activities on Windows Recall Windows Recall is a straightforward feature once it's configured, but there are some details you need to know. Start a search To use search with Recall AI, use these steps: Click the Windows Recall button in the System Tray. Sign in with your Microsoft account credentials to access the app. Click the Open Recall button. (Image credit: Mauro Huculak) Quick tip: You can also find the app from the Start menu, and you can right-click the app and pin it to the Taskbar. (Option 1) Use the search box to search for an activity using natural language. (Image credit: Mauro Huculak) Quick tip: You can also click the "microphone" button and perform a voice search. Select the snapshot from the result. Quick tip: If the feature can't find any matches, you can click the "File Explorer results" option to perform a traditional Windows Search. (Option 2) Use the timeline slider to scroll back in time to find a particular snapshot. (Image credit: Mauro Huculak) For example, in the search box, you can type a question in the same way you would ask another person. For instance, "find the red leather jacket I saw the other day when browsing the internet." When you press Enter, the feature will look into your past activities and bring up a snapshot that includes an image of the red leather jacket. (Image credit: Mauro Huculak) The default behavior is to show every result from all the apps. You can then use the available controls to narrow down the search. Windows Recall offers text and visual matches that are more relevant to your query. Also, the "Close match" results include at least one of the keywords, keyphrases, or images that are part of your search term. The "Related match" results are not exactly related to your search term. If you use the timeline slider, you can scroll back to exactly the moment you were performing a specific activity. The timeline is divided into different segments and time periods. You can hover over the timeline to preview each activity from your selected period. (If the slider isn't available, click the "Timeline" button next to the search box.) (Image credit: Mauro Huculak) You can also use the navigation buttons on either side of the app to go between snapshots. When selecting a part of the timeline or specific activities, Windows Recall will load the snapshot. If you click the "Now" button, the feature will take a snapshot of the desktop. You can interact with the snapshot, but this particular snapshot won't be saved on your Recall history. Interact with snapshots It's important to note that when you interact with snapshots, you are actually using the "Click to Do" feature. Click to Do is the feature that scans the snapshots with the on-device AI models to surface additional options to perform different actions with the text and elements found inside the screenshots you're viewing. To interact with a Recall snapshot with Click to Do, use these steps: Open the Windows Recall app. Sign in using Windows Hello to access the app. Perform a search with a text prompt or voice or by using the timeline slider. Select the snapshot from the result. Quick tip: You can also right-click a snapshot to copy or delete the element from the context menu. In the snapshot, you will notice an animation around the element. This is the Click to Do feature analyzing the contents of the element. The snapshot also includes a date and time stamp in the bottom-right corner. (Option 1) You can select and copy text, similar to extracting text from images using the Snipping Tool. (Image credit: Mauro Huculak) Select an element from the snapshot to access different options. For example, blur and remove background and erase object. Quick tip: When using the Click to Do feature on an object, the options to blur and erase the background will open the screenshot with the Photos app, and the option to remove the background will open with the Microsoft Paint app. (Image credit: Mauro Huculak) (Option 2) Click the app button at the bottom of the page to launch the app. Quick note: If the feature is capable, it will restore the app in the same location as the app you left off. If you're dealing with a snapshot of a website, the page on the snapshot will load instead of simplifying opening the web browser. (Option 3) Click the "Click to Do" button to turn the feature on or off. (Option 4) Click the Copy button to copy the snapshot as a screenshot to the clipboard. (Option 5) Click the "Delete" (trash) button to erase the snapshot from the system. (Option 6) Click the context menu to access different options. However, currently, you can only choose to open the screenshot with the Snipping Tool. (Image credit: Mauro Huculak) Once you complete the steps, you can proceed with another search or close the app to maintain the security of your data. Other details about Windows Recall If you reached this point, you should now have a good idea of how to use the Windows Recall feature. However, there are some additional details that you want to know. For example, the feature will only run while the device is actively being used. If the computer goes idle for some time, the feature will turn off automatically until you resume an activity. You will notice this because the Windows Recall icon in the System Tray will change its state to disabled. The System Tray icon is the indicator that lets you know that Windows Recall is enabled on the computer. You cannot move or hide this icon, similar to the location icon that appears when an app is accessing your location. (Image credit: Mauro Huculak) If you turn off the Windows Recall feature, it'll be disabled permanently. The icon won't appear in the System Tray, and the Recall app will no longer appear in the Start menu. Also, if you turn off the feature, the data won't be deleted automatically from your computer. If you re-enable the feature, the previous history will continue to be available. If you want to clear the history cache, you will have to delete the snapshots manually. Microsoft is taking some extra precautions after receiving many security concerns from feedback. These changes include a new page in the Windows 11 Setup experience that lets you decide whether to enable or disable the feature on your computer. (Microsoft originally planned to turn the feature on by default.) (Image credit: Microsoft) If you choose to enable the AI feature, you will have to enable Windows Hello PIN, Face, or Fingerprint on your account. You will also need to sign in to the "Recall" app to access your timeline. (Image credit: Mauro Huculak) The system security originally protected the Recall database, but once signed in, the data was available in plain text. However, as part of the new changes, the company is now encrypting the database and snapshots, so it will not be easily accessible. In addition to these changes, Windows Recall will be protected by the Secured-core PC firmware, Microsoft Pluton security processor, and Windows Hello Enhanced Sign-in Security (ESS). Also, the computer must be using BitLocker (or Device Encryption) before you can turn on the feature. Furthermore, Microsoft assures that the data collected by Recall will stay on your computer, nothing will be uploaded to the cloud, and the company won't use any data to train its AI models. Finally, it's important to note that initially, the feature is only optimized for English, Chinese (simplified), French, German, Japanese, and Spanish. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of November): 5,298 news posts RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

After spending six months improving Recall after its initially disastrous launch, Microsoft returned its flagship AI feature to Windows Insiders for testing in the latest preview builds. Although the company has addressed much criticism about the feature, some concerns remain, especially when it comes to Microsoft's claims about capturing sensitive data (plus other known issues like ignoring the list of filtered websites). Tom's Hardware experimented with Recall and its capability to filter out confidential information like credit card numbers, social security numbers, personal information, and other sensitive data. In some cases, Recall successfully detected and filtered out what it should not snapshot. However, many times, it ignored all clues and captured everything without any filters. For example, Recall captured a credit card number in Windows Notepad and a fully filled loan application in the Edge browser. The same happened with a simple HTML page with fields for credit card information like number, CVC, expiration date, etc. Despite the obvious clues, Recall ignored its filters and captured everything as is. Image Source: Tom's Hardware Still, not everything is that bad. Recall managed to detect sensitive information on e-commerce websites and capture them without any personal information. Before you grab a pitchfork, it is worth reminding that Recall is currently in public preview, and Microsoft explicitly stated that filters might not work 100%: In addition, Windows 11 encrypts all your snapshots, and they are only accessible after you authenticate with Windows Hello. Microsoft also promises that snapshots never leave your device, and turning off Recall purges everything immediately. Despite the reassurances, the reality shows that Copilot+ PC owners should probably think twice before embracing Recall. Although Recall is now available (in preview) for more devices, including AMD and Intel-powered ones, it is probably a good idea for many to stay away from it and let Microsoft take its time to polish the experience and make it more reliable. With that said, it remains a big question whether Microsoft can regain user trust after all the drama that happened this year. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of November): 5,298 news posts RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

I’ve been testing the controversial Recall feature and I’m still not sure if I love it or hate it. I honestly thought I’d hate Microsoft’s controversial Recall feature and immediately disable it, but after using it for the past couple of weeks, I’ve been both creeped out and impressed with what it’s capable of. Recall, a Windows 11 feature that takes snapshots of mostly everything you see on your screen, quickly became a controversy earlier this year after Microsoft announced it. Privacy advocates immediately started warning about potential issues with Recall without even using it, and security researchers found big holes in a prerelease version of the feature. Microsoft delayed Recall multiple times to give the company more time to address the security issues, and it’s now in testing for Windows Insiders ahead of a broader rollout next year. The first thing I noticed about Recall is that the initial setup experience is very clunky and feels unfinished. You launch the app, and it redirects you to Windows Update, where AI models will start downloading and installing. Once you’ve installed a trio of these, it looks like the install process is complete — but then Windows Update will find another component of Recall to install. After fiddling around for 10 minutes, Recall will finally offer up a setup experience that allows you to enable or disable snapshots. Snapshots are the key part of how Recall works, and they form the foundation of a scrollable timeline that lets you jump back through everything you’ve seen. They’re essentially screenshots of what you were working on, much like how your browser history is stored in a web browser. But critically, a screenshot of your entire screen has a lot more information. When I first started scrolling through the Recall timeline, it freaked me out. My emails were recorded, my Slack messages with colleagues were snapshotted, and photos from a recent vacation all went into Recall’s database. Even drafts of dumb tweets I didn’t send were captured by Recall. It honestly felt a little creepy to scroll through my digital life like this. I immediately removed Slack from being added to Recall and deleted its relevant snapshots. Microsoft makes it easy to exclude an app from Recall in settings but also just to remove snapshots for specific apps at a later date. You can select a snapshot from the search interface of Recall and remove the associated app or even websites. Once I’d gotten over the creepy aspect of Recall and changed some settings, I mostly forgot about the feature for a few days and let it do its thing of snapshotting my laptop until two things happened that really surprised me. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been doing some Christmas shopping, and I found the perfect gift for my partner and then immediately started searching around different stores for availability and pricing. I eventually got distracted and forgot to order the gift. A few days later, after I’d closed the tabs that I was using to search for the gift, I was trying to find it again. I headed into Chrome’s browsing history to find the website I’d seen with the best price, but I had searched through multiple retailers, so it was impossible to find the exact site without opening nearly 20 tabs and searching through manually again. I pulled up Recall instead and searched just for “£85” on a whim, the best price I remember seeing for the item. Before I could blink, there it was, immediately in the Recall search interface. It didn’t take Recall minutes or even seconds; it was as instant as a Google search result. It was honestly surprising to see how fast this Recall search works, especially given Windows search features have only gotten worse over the years. Recall also helped me review the social media accounts of the suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. After the suspect was named, social media companies started removing profiles, but because I was browsing them with Recall, it stored them all on my PC before they vanished. I was able to scroll through the snapshots without having to rely on an online archiving service. As a journalist, I often have to screenshot tweets just in case someone deletes them, and Recall is just sitting there doing the work for me in case I forget. Recall also lets you copy text or images from these snapshots it creates or, if it’s a website, you can just revisit the website again. Most of the time, this works well, but I have plenty of snapshots where Recall simply doesn’t recognize the text or let me copy it fully. There have also been times when I’ve searched for something I remember seeing and Recall didn’t store it, so it’s not recording literally everything you’ve seen. While I’ve found some early examples of Recall helping me out, I still need more time to figure out whether I want to keep it enabled. As impressive as it is, I’m still wary of storing a digital trail like this on my laptop. I’m also waiting to see if security researchers are happy with Microsoft’s big Recall changes. One of the main changes means authenticating with Windows Hello every time you want to use Recall, which can be a little annoying right now. But if it keeps Recall secure, then I can’t really complain too much about this minor inconvenience. It’s also important to note here that Recall will only be available on Copilot Plus PCs, so unless you’ve purchased one of these new laptops over the past six months, you won’t be able to access this new feature. There’s been a lot of FUD, largely from YouTubers, about how Microsoft is supposedly secretly planning to install Recall on every Windows 11 PC, but that’s simply not accurate. Recall is one of the headline features of Copilot Plus PCs and requires a dedicated NPU to run efficiently. I’m now hoping that the new AI-powered changes to Windows Search will be as useful as Recall, without requiring snapshots of your PC. Microsoft is promising to launch a similar natural language search to the main search interface on Windows, allowing you to find files and documents without needing to know file names or search for pictures using words. If my experience with Recall is anything to go by, it should make finding files a breeze. As I’ve started to rely more on Recall for searches, there have also been times I’ve been using my desktop PC and wished I had access to it. Microsoft is tying its new Windows AI features to NPUs, and we haven’t seen Intel or AMD lean into desktop CPUs that have Copilot Plus compatibility yet. I hope that changes soon because, as much as I’m not a fan of generative AI features that create images of people with six fingers, using AI to improve the daily tasks of searching for things on my PC is a far more compelling part of the future of Windows. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of November): 5,298 news posts RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

After much controversy and delays, Recall is turning out to be Windows' first truly useful AI productivity tool. Microsoft’s controversial Windows Recall feature is finally ready for testing, and I’ve been using it on my Surface Laptop 7 since the preview became available last week. My first impressions so far are surprisingly positive, given the many privacy and security concerns, along with delays that the feature originally had. I’ve always been a believer in the Recall concept — that is, an app or service built into an operating system (OS) that essentially triages everything you do on your computer and makes it super easy to revisit at a later point. Recall is essentially a safety net, backing up everything you see and do in case it gets deleted or misplaced down the line. It’s one of those features that doesn’t showcase its worth until you really need it. For example, the other day, I was writing some article content and decided that I no longer needed a few paragraphs. I deleted them and continued my day, only to realize later that I could have reused those paragraphs in another article. The setup screen is pretty, but bare of any download progress. (Image credit: Windows Central) Without Recall, that content would be gone, and I’d have to rewrite those paragraphs. Luckily, since I was using my Surface Laptop 7 with Recall enabled, I was able to quickly find the moment in time when I originally wrote those paragraphs and copy them directly into my live CMS. It’s also super handy when you’re looking for something you can’t quite remember the name of, whether that be an article, product, web page, image, or app. I recently came across a smartwatch in an online advert that I liked the look of but never clicked on. I was later able to find that watch again with Recall by simply typing “watch” into Recall’s search box. Recall supports both text and image-based search results, and both work super well and surprisingly quickly. You can search for common items and objects, and Recall will be able to pull up visual results even when the snapshots don’t include that specific word or phrase on the screen. Recall is straightforward and easy to use. (Image credit: Windows Central) The app’s interface is also quite nice, featuring a large snapshot in the center of the screen and a horizontal scrubbable timeline across the top. The more snapshots Recall collects, the wider that timeline becomes. You can scroll back through all of your snapshots with your cursors and even click and hold for a more granular look at snapshots captured at any given time. Recall is also super configurable to the point where you can really dial in what kind of content it does and doesn’t capture. If you’re weary of Recall capturing snapshots of your financial information or chats with friends, you can filter out those specific apps and websites so that they don’t ever appear in Recall. For me, I have my online banking websites, as well as Signal, Telegram, and WhatsApp, added to my filter lists so that Recall doesn’t capture or triage that content. The filtering is seamless and easy, and it works automatically in the background when the Recall service is running. Recall offers deep confiugration for privacy reasons. (Image credit: Windows Central) In short, I'm loving my time with Recall. It might be the first truly productive AI-powered feature I've used in a desktop OS, something that works automatically in the background and is intuitive and seamless to the OS experience. I've never been a fan of Copilot and its gimmicky generative-based features, but Recall (and soon Click To Do) is an AI feature I can truly get behind. In fact, it's so good that I'm annoyed that I can't sync my snapshots across devices. Privacy is a big concern around this feature, so Microsoft hasn't included an option to upload snapshot data to the cloud. As a result, my Recall data is split between multiple devices with no way to sync or merge them, which is a bit annoying but understandable. Unsurprisingly, this initial preview build does have some teething issues. Setting up Recall is a bit of a pain, requiring multiple large downloads via Windows Update before the app becomes functional. These downloads take a few minutes to complete, and the Recall app doesn’t even show a progress bar for this. Windows Hello will pop up every time you open the app. (Image credit: Windows Central) It also doesn’t automatically start working when the downloads are done; you have to close and re-open the app first. However, once that initial setup is complete, the app works great—unless it fails to show any snapshots after setup, as some people have been reporting. Another annoyance I have is with how often it asks for Windows Hello authentication. It asks every time you open the app, which is fine if you use it once or twice a day, but if you’re like me and open it multiple times an hour, it becomes quite annoying. This problem is less with Recall and more with Windows Hello itself. It can sometimes feel slow and take a few beats to wake up the IR sensors to authenticate me. Additionally, the Windows Hello prompt itself requires the user to manually click OK to authenticate, which adds an additional step to the process. Recall was announced back in May. (Image credit: Getty Images | Jason Redmond) While I totally understand the requirement for Windows Hello to keep this feature secure, I would like to see an option to turn on the ability to skip pressing OK manually every time my face is recognized. That would speed up the authentication process enough to not be annoying anymore. Overall, I think I'm already at a point where I can confidently say I can't imagine myself living without this feature. Being able to go back to any point in time and grab an image or text from that moment is amazing and, in a weird way, liberating. I'm no longer worried about losing anything, whether it be webpages, chats, random popups, alerts, or images because Recall has my back at all times. Windows Recall is now available in preview for Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ PCs, with Intel and AMD-powered Copilot+ PCs expected to gain support in the coming weeks. Recall will likely begin rolling out generally to all Copilot+ PCs sometime in early 2025. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Microsoft is finally launching a public preview of Recall, its flagship and somewhat controversial AI feature for Copilot+ PCs. The company planned to launch Recall in June, but privacy concerns and media backlash forced Microsoft to change the course and spend a few more months improving Recall before its public test. Now, it is time for Windows Insiders to try a public version of Recall and its new feature, Click to Do. Windows Recall is currently available to insiders with Copilot+ PCs. To try the feature, you have to update your Snapdragon-powered computer to the just-released Windows 11 Dev build 26120.2415 preview. Once updated, Windows 11 will initialize the download of necessary components for Recall and Click To Do, another AI-powered feature Microsoft launched today. To make sure all your data stays private and intact, Microsoft implemented several security measures and improvements. You will not be able to use Recall on non-Copilot+ PCs or without Windows Hello and Secure Boot. Recall will also ask you if you want to save snapshots of your work so that you can later retrace your steps back or search for something. You should also note that Recall will reserve a significant part of your system drive, which might become a problem on entry-level Copilot+ PCs. Although Microsoft says that all snapshots remain local and never leave your system (Microsoft does not use them for AI training), some users will want to make sure Recall never captures certain apps or websites. You can specify those in the Settings app, and Microsoft even encourages users to share (anonymously) those apps and websites so it can improve Recall and its privacy protections. In addition, Microsoft promises that Recall won't capture passwords, credit card details, and other personal information. Note that turning off Windows Hello or resetting your system will wipe all your snapshots for good. Microsoft will not be able to help you restore the data since it does not have access to it or keys for decryption. Speaking of which, Microsoft says a future update will make it possible to back up decryption keys. As a Windows Insider, you should be prepared for changes in Recall that may delete your snapshots or force you to reset Recall. That is the nature of testing pre-release software on its road to the general public. Also, the current version has a few known bugs, which you can check out here. Recall is currently available to Windows Insiders with Copilot+ PCs powered by Snapdragon X processors. It is coming soon to AMD and Intel-based Copilot+ PCs, but the exact date is unknown. Another important fact is that Recall currently only works with English, French, German, Japanese, Spanish, and Chinese languages. Although Recall is turned off by default, Microsoft still allows uninstalling it. During the testing period, Recall's binaries will be cached on the system drive, but a future update will let users remove them completely. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Remember Windows Recall, a flagship Copilot+ PC feature that was supposed to launch in June of this year? Following controversies with privacy issues, Microsoft is once again recalling Recall. This time, it plans to ship the feature for public testing in December 2024. In a statement to The Verge, Microsoft's Brandon LeBlanc confirmed that Recall needs more time in the oven as Microsoft takes more time to "refine the experience." The initial plan was to ship Windows Recall with the first wave of Copilot+ PCs, such as the Surface Pro 11 and the Surface Laptop 7. However, users quickly discovered that Recall had some significant privacy issues, which forced Microsoft to change its plans and take the feature back to its software labs. After months of radio silence and waiting, Microsoft finally revealed significant security improvements for Recall. By the end of September 2024, the company announced plans to return Recall to public testing somewhere in October 2024. But with October counting its last hours, Recall is still nowhere to be found, and we now know why. Although it is a bit disappointing to see Microsoft failing to deliver its flagship feature, Copilot+ PCs still have a lot of exciting features already available and coming soon. At the beginning of this month, Microsoft announced a new set of AI-powered features, such as Super Resolution, Click to Do, and more. Some of those capabilities are already available for testing in the Insider program. By the way, you do not need a Snapdragon X-powered computer to run Recall. Microsoft confirmed that the feature would be available on systems with Intel's Core Ultra Series 2 processors and AMD's Ryzen 300 AI chips. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Microsoft has finally broken its radio silence and published a blog post about Recall, the highly controversial feature that was announced a few weeks ago. Following some pretty shocking discoveries made by security experts and calls to recall Recall (sorry), Microsoft is adjusting its course to offer more transparency and security to customers. For starters, Recall is now a clear opt-in feature. During the onboarding experience (the initial setup or OOBE), Windows 11 will ask whether you want Recall on or off. The best part is there are seemingly no tricky words or caveats: just two plain buttons with “No” and “Yes.” This should ensure there will be no customers unaware of their PCs screenshotting almost everything that is happening on their screens. The description also makes it clear that Windows will be taking snapshots of your screen every few seconds. Again, for transparency and clear understanding. Next, Windows 11 will require Windows Hello authentication to enable Recall and review your timeline. Finally, there will be additional protection mechanisms to prevent someone from sniffing your entire Recall database. Windows 11 will use just-in-time encryption, ensuring snapshots and the search index database are decrypted only after you authenticate with Windows Hello and its enhanced security measures. Microsoft also reminded customers about the existing privacy measures it implemented, such as storing snapshots locally and not sharing them with anybody (even with Microsoft), notifying the user when Windows 11 takes a snapshot, DRM and InPrivate support, the ability to filter, pause, and delete what was saved, and more. You can find more about the latest changes in the official blog post. Do you think these changes are enough to regain the lost trust in Recall? Share your thoughts in the comment section. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every single day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of May): Nearly 2,400 news posts

A new discovery that the AI-enabled feature’s historical data can be accessed even by hackers without administrator privileges only contributes to the growing sense that the feature is a “dumpster fire.” Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella has hailed the company's new Recall feature, which stores a history of your computer desktop and makes it available to AI for analysis, as “photographic memory” for your PC. Within the cybersecurity community, meanwhile, the notion of a tool that silently takes a screenshot of your desktop every five seconds has been hailed as a hacker's dream come true and the worst product idea in recent memory. Now, security researchers have pointed out that even the one remaining security safeguard meant to protect that feature from exploitation can be trivially defeated. Since Recall was first announced last month, the cybersecurity world has pointed out that if a hacker can install malicious software to gain a foothold on a target machine with the feature enabled, they can quickly gain access to the user's entire history stored by the function. The only barrier, it seemed, to that high-resolution view of a victim's entire life at the keyboard was that accessing Recall's data required administrator privileges on a user's machine. That meant malware without that higher-level privilege would trigger a permission pop-up, allowing users to prevent access, and that malware would also likely be blocked by default from accessing the data on most corporate machines. Then on Wednesday, James Forshaw, a researcher with Google's Project Zero vulnerability research team, published an update to a blog post pointing out that he had found methods for accessing Recall data without administrator privileges—essentially stripping away even that last fig leaf of protection. “No admin required ;-)” the post concluded. “Damn,” Forshaw added on Mastodon. “I really thought the Recall database security would at least be, you know, secure.” Forshaw's blog post described two different techniques to bypass the administrator privilege requirement, both of which exploit ways of defeating a basic security function in Windows known as access control lists that determine which elements on a computer require which privileges to read and alter. One of Forshaw's methods exploits an exception to those control lists, temporarily impersonating a program on Windows machines called AIXHost.exe that can access even restricted databases. Another is even simpler: Forshaw points out that because the Recall data stored on a machine is considered to belong to the user, a hacker with the same privileges as the user could simply rewrite the access control lists on a target machine to grant themselves access to the full database. That second, simpler bypass technique “is just mindblowing, to be honest,” says Alex Hagenah, a cybersecurity strategist and ethical hacker. Hagenah recently built a proof-of-concept hacker tool called TotalRecall designed to show that someone who gained access to a victim's machine with Recall could immediately siphon out all the user's history recorded by the feature. Hagenah's tool, however, still required that hackers find another way to gain administrator privileges through a so-called “privilege escalation” technique before his tool would work. With Forshaw's technique, “you don’t need any privilege escalation, no pop-up, nothing,” says Hagenah. “This would make sense to implement in the tool for a bad guy.” In fact, just an hour after speaking to WIRED about Forshaw's finding, Hagenah added the simpler of Forshaw's two techniques to his TotalRecall tool, then confirmed that the trick worked by accessing all the Recall history data stored on another user's machine for which he didn't have administrator access. “So simple and genius,” he wrote in a text to WIRED after testing the technique. That confirmation removes one of the last arguments Recall's defenders have had against criticisms that the feature acts as, essentially, a piece of pre-installed spyware on a user's machine, ready to be exploited by any hacker who can gain a foothold on the device. “It makes your security very fragile, in the sense that anyone who penetrates your computer for even a second can get your whole history,” says Dave Aitel, the founder of the cybersecurity firm Immunity and a former NSA hacker. “Which is not something people want.” For now, security researchers have been testing Recall in preview versions of the tool ahead of its expected launch later this month. Microsoft said it plans to integrate Recall on compatible Copilot+ PCs with the feature turned on by default. WIRED reached out to the company for comment on Forshaw's findings about Recall's security issues, but the company has yet to respond. The revelation that hackers can exploit Recall without even using a separate privilege escalation technique only contributes further to the sense that the feature was rushed to market without a proper review from the company's cybersecurity team—despite the company's CEO Nadella proclaiming just last month that Microsoft would make security its first priority in every decision going forward. “You cannot convince me that Microsoft's security teams looked at this and said ‘that looks secure,’” says Jake Williams, a former NSA hacker and now the VP of R&D at the cybersecurity consultancy Hunter Strategy, where he says he's been asked by some of the firm's clients to test Recall's security before they add Microsoft devices that use it to their networks. “As it stands now, it’s a security dumpster fire,” Williams says. “This is one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen from an enterprise security standpoint.” Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every single day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of May): Nearly 2,400 news posts

The world is up-in-arms over Windows Recall, but why? It stems from Microsoft's seeming lack of care for Windows and its users. It's a nightmare scenario for Microsoft. The headlining feature of its new Copilot+ PC initiative, which is supposed to drive millions of PC sales over the next couple of years, is under significant fire for being what many say is a major breach of privacy and security on Windows. That feature in question is Windows Recall, a new AI tool designed to remember everything you do on Windows. On paper, it's a cool idea. As CEO Satya Nadella described it, Windows now has a photographic memory that uses AI to triage and index everything you've ever done on your computer, enabling you to semantically search for things you've seen using natural language. It's a new and improved way of finding things on Windows, and in our testing of the feature, it works really well. However, for a tool like this to be feasible, trust between the user and the platform is required, a luxury Microsoft doesn't appear to have with its Windows user base right now. Recall operates by taking and storing captures of your screen every few seconds to build a database that the user can later search, with screenshots as visual aids. That database is stored locally on your device and never uploaded to the cloud. In fact, Microsoft goes so far as to promise that it cannot see the data collected by Windows Recall, that it can't train any of its AI models on your data, and that it definitely can't sell that data to advertisers. All of this is true, but that doesn't mean people believe Microsoft when it says these things. In fact, many have jumped to the conclusion that even if it's true today, it won't be true in the future. Microsoft eroded user trust on Windows with bad practices that are now biting them back Microsoft employs some bad practices on Windows 11 to squeeze money out of its users. (Image credit: Microsoft) Microsoft is fully aware that the concept of Windows Recall sounds creepy. I know that the company spent a lot of time internally figuring out how to communicate this feature to the world, but it turns out there's no good way to communicate something like this when your users don't trust you. Users are describing the feature as literal spyware or malware, and droves of people are proclaiming they will proudly switch to Linux or Mac in the wake of it. Microsoft simply doesn't enjoy the same benefit of the doubt that other tech giants like Apple may have. People think Windows Recall is malware or spyware. (Image credit: Windows Central) Had Apple announced a feature like Recall, there would have been much less backlash, as Apple has done a great job building loyalty and trust with its users, prioritizing polished software experiences, and positioning privacy as a high-level concern for the company. Microsoft, on the other hand, has done a lot to degrade the Windows user experience over the last few years. Everything from obtrusive advertisements to full-screen popups, ignoring app defaults, forcing a Microsoft Account, and more have eroded the trust relationship between Windows users and Microsoft. Here is a list of just some of the practices Microsoft has employed on Windows that users do not like: Requiring a Microsoft Account to setup Windows 11 Advertising in system-level interfaces like Start, Widgets, Settings, and File Explorer Refusing to acknowledge user app defaults like browsers Shoehorning MSN into Windows Replacing native Windows apps with slower, uglier web apps Full-screen prompts pushing you to setup OneDrive or Microsoft 365 While Microsoft has now addressed some of these issues (thanks to the EU forcing its hand), the damage has already been done. It's clear that Microsoft and Apple prioritize their OS platforms in very different ways. Apple ensures its operating systems are clean, polished, and without bloat. Microsoft, on the other hand, views Windows as a platform that should be making money from its users, filling it with ads and bloatware where it can, sometimes at the expense of user choice and OS polish. It doesn't bode well for a feature like Windows Recall, which relies on complete trust between the user and the platform. If Microsoft considers Windows quality assurance an afterthought, how can it expect people to trust a feature like Windows Recall? It's no surprise that users are already assuming that Microsoft will eventually end up collecting that data and using it to shape advertisements for you. That really would be a huge invasion of privacy, and people fully expect Microsoft to do it, and I can't help but feel like it's those bad Windows practices that have led people to this conclusion. The concept of Windows Recall comes with risks on an open platform like Windows Windows Recall data is stored unencrypted, and that's not good. (Image credit: Windows Central) With Windows being an open platform, a built-in tool designed to collect data about everything you've ever seen is a recipe for disaster. Unlike iOS, iPadOS, and even Android, users and apps have complete access to the entire OS. While some mitigations exist to ensure users and apps don't mess around with system files on Windows, these can be bypassed. It has been discovered that Windows Recall seemingly stores its data unencrypted, which is a huge security concern for many people. This means that third-party apps could reach in and grab that data to learn everything about you. Many immediately point to malware, which is certainly a concern. However, even third-party apps that you trust could potentially reach in there to learn about you. Your favorite web browser, video editor, or music streaming app of choice could release an update that begins scraping data from Windows Recall and uploading it to its own backend. That would, of course, be a huge invasion of privacy, but it would technically be possible, and that's thanks to Windows' open nature and the reported lack of security around stored Windows Recall data. Even your employer could build a tool that's preloaded onto your work laptop that's designed to scrape that data. It's all quite concerning. The fact that Windows is an open platform means anyone can do anything if they want to. That's a blessing and a curse, and it means an app like Recall, in an unencrypted state, doesn't really work on Windows currently. On iOS and iPadOS, users are locked out of important system files, and app developers are sandboxed and have no ability to read or modify system files outside of documented APIs. So, if iPadOS had its own version of Recall, that data could be stored unencrypted and still be safe from third-party attackers. It's the same story on Android. Windows enjoys no such luxury, so Microsoft needs to put extra effort into ensuring Windows Recall is secure. It needs to ensure that only the Windows Recall app can read and understand that data. If that data is unencrypted, anyone can read it. Everything it collects is reportedly stored in a plaintext SQLite database, making it easy to parse information from it. People won't trust Windows Recall regardless of how the data is stored locally. Windows Recall can't run secretly, as it places a visual indicator on the Taskbar that cannot be removed when it's enabled. (Image credit: Windows Central) There's quite a bit of hysteria over the discovery that Windows Recall stores data unencrypted. It's important to remember that Windows Recall isn't actually out yet, so Microsoft could update Windows Recall before launch to address this, or perhaps even potentially delay the feature to ensure security. Assuming Microsoft does eventually fix these security concerns, I don't think that's going to change much for people. Many have already assumed the worst; that Windows Recall will eventually be used as a means to sell data to advertisers and train AI models, and that if it's not happening today, it's only a matter of time. People think Microsoft are lying about Recall not uploading data to the cloud. (Image credit: Windows Central) Many are even convinced that Microsoft will attempt to enable Windows Recall on PCs that have chosen not to use it via updates down the line. That's just the sort of company people think Microsoft is like. I think this stems from the fact that people don't understand how Windows Recall works. Microsoft has built a number of safety features into Windows Recall to ensure that the service can't run secretly in the background. When Windows Recall is enabled, it places a permanent visual indicator icon on the Taskbar to let the user know that Windows Recall is capturing data. This icon cannot be hidden or moved. People are ready to assume Microsoft will enable Windows Recall in a future update. (Image credit: Windows Central) It's also important to remember that Microsoft has no monetary incentive to force people to use Windows Recall. The data it collects is of no value to Microsoft, as it can't see any of it. Windows Recall is a selling point for new hardware, built as a means to improve user productivity, not sell advertising. But that's hard for people to believe, and perhaps that's rightly so. With that in mind, there would be no reason for Microsoft to automatically enable Windows Recall in an update down the line. If it does happen, the user will be able to instantly tell thanks to that that visual indicator and turn it off again. Microsoft chose to keep Windows Recall a secret, and that hasn't helped things. Windows Recall went through several iterations internally... and public testing could have helped spot issues. (Image credit: Windows Central) Some insider baseball here, but for some reason Microsoft was overly secretive about Windows Recall during development. It didn't want anyone to know about it. If you wanted to test the feature internally, you needed to be accepted into a tented program first, which I understand wasn't easy to get into. When I leaked the existence of Windows Recall (AI Explorer) and Copilot+ PCs (CADMUS) back in December 2023, I heard from sources that the company wasn't pleased. Microsoft has the Windows Insider Program, yet to maintain secrecy, it chose not to test this feature openly. I can't think of a single feature that would have benefitted from public testing more than Windows Recall. This is the kind of feature that needs to be built in the open so that users can learn to trust you with it. Had it been tested openly, these security concerns would have definitely been pointed out well ahead of general availability, and likely fixed before mass hysteria could ensue. Of course, the true reason Windows Recall wasn't tested openly was because the company wanted to make it exclusive to new Copilot+ PCs, and you can't really do that if you're testing the feature on existing PCs where it works quite well. Microsoft also wanted to keep Windows Recall a secret so it could have a big reveal on May 20. Except, it wasn't really much of a big reveal. Many of us in the tech press already knew it was coming, even without being briefed on the feature ahead of time. You can't have Windows Recall anyway Windows Recall is only enabled on new hardware. (Image credit: Windows Central) Ultimately, you can't have Windows Recall anyway. It's a feature reserved exclusively for new PCs shipping under the Copilot+ umbrella, which means if you want to use it, you'll have to buy a new device with a neural processing unit (NPU) that can output 40 TOPS of power first. Your existing Windows 11 PC is not eligible to run Windows Recall and very likely never will be. That's good news for those who don't want Windows Recall, as it means there's nothing you need to do to avoid it. Just keep using your existing device, and you should be safe from the all-seeing eye that is Windows Recall. If you do happen to acquire a Copilot+ PC, you can choose not to use Windows Recall. There's some discourse around the feature being potentially enabled by default, but I'm told via sources that this is being reconsidered. I suspect Microsoft will give the user a choice to turn Windows Recall on or off during the setup process on Copilot+ PCs. If it doesn't, that's just another bad Windows practice to add to the list. It's a shame because Windows Recall is really good. I've really enjoyed using Windows Recall over the last week. (Image credit: Windows Central) I think it's fair to say that a feature can be both insecure and good at what it does. That's Windows Recall for me right now. I've been testing it over the last week, and it's a great tool for finding things you only half remember, or have deleted, accidentally or otherwise. In fact, it came in clutch for this very article. I had deleted a paragraph earlier in the day as I didn't think it was relevant, only later to realize I could reuse that paragraph elsewhere in the story. On a normal PC, that paragraph is gone, and I'd have to rewrite it from scratch. But with Windows Recall, I was able to go back to that point in time when I originally wrote it, copy it from there, and paste it back into my CMS. The ability to search for things using natural language is genuinely great, and it works really well for a 1.0 product. But there's a very dark cloud hanging over this feature right now, and a lot of privacy conscious people are simply not going to be able to subscribe to the idea of Windows Recall in its current form. Microsoft told me at the event where Windows Recall was announced that it plans to rapidly update this feature now that it's shipping. I suspect this means we will see new features and capabilities added to Windows Recall over the coming months, along with updates to ensure the data it collects is secure on the device. What happens now? Microsoft is the villain in many people's eyes. (Image credit: Windows Central) So what happens now? Will Microsoft delay Windows Recall, or maybe even cancel it? Will people ever be able to trust it? I don't think Microsoft will delay or cancel it. I think Windows Recall will ship on June 18 as was originally announced, with the promise of an update coming shortly after to fix the security concerns people have with it. With Windows Recall being exclusive to Copilot+ PCs, I imagine the number of PCs that could even be targeted with Recall malware over the next few months will be in the low thousands, which gives Microsoft some time to update Windows Recall with better security before more people adopt Copilot+ devices. I definitely think Microsoft will make Windows Recall an optional feature that you can choose to enable or disable during Windows setup. It would be a really bad look to have it as opt-out rather than opt-in at this current time. Windows Recall is a feature that ships as part of Windows 11 version 24H2, which technically won't be generally available until this fall for existing PCs. Even when that happens, Windows Recall won't be enabled on your existing device. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every single day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of May): Nearly 2,400 news posts

For a feature apparently nobody likes, there sure is a lot of interest in creating clones of it. And not just for Windows, either. Since Microsoft announced Windows Recall at Build it's been one of the hottest topics of discussion in this space. Not all for good reasons, either. To say Recall is controversial would be an understatement. Whether it's community members or prominent figures like Elon Musk weighing in, or security worries, or just straight up FUD, there's plenty of discontent around Microsoft's upcoming AI-powered feature. But amid all of this, the appearance of so much negativity and blowback, there sure is a rush to clone it. We know there's already a way to force Windows Recall onto officially unsupported machines, but after reading up on that on GitHub, I went browsing a little further. Recall has already inspired a number of projects designed to imitate its functionality, and not just on Windows 11, either. One of the more well put together projects right now is called OpenRecall. It's essentially designed to mimic the Windows Recall functionality, operating on Windows, Mac, and Linux, while being completely open source. The benefit to that last point is that since anyone can poke around in the code, there's less likelihood of any nefarious activity going on. It's billed as: "OpenRecall is a fully open-source, privacy-first alternative to proprietary solutions like Microsoft's Windows Recall or Limitless' Rewind.ai. With OpenRecall, you can easily access your digital history, enhancing your memory and productivity without compromising your privacy." It seems to operate in a similar fashion to Windows Recall, grabbing screenshots of your activity and making them searchable, either by entering text search terms or by scrolling through a visual timeline. I haven't tried it myself, because I ran into some Python related issues I'm not smart enough to figure out right now, but the video above is taken from the GitHub repository. What I can gather is that for the AI parts, it's using HuggingFace. It's obviously very early, but shows promise, and unlike Microsoft's own version, is fully cross-platform, supporting Mac and Linux, too. All you need to try it out yourself is Git and at least Python 3.11 installed on your system, and the installation steps are listed on the GitHub repo. Windows Recall is already spawning some open-source clone projects. (Image credit: Windows Central) Including OpenRecall, I count at least four projects just on the first page of GitHub search results alone of folks trying to build their own interpretation of Windows Recall. For a feature that's drawn such ire, it's certainly capturing some imagination. Personally, I'm not yet sure whether Recall is going to be a feature I'll be able to build into my daily workflow. I'm not on the side of "ermagherd this is so bad and so insecure, burn it to the ground," but I am a little concerned that Microsoft has missed a few steps in building it. A developer that size shouldn't be building tools that stores key data in plain text, for example. I am, however, a fan of open-source software projects, and I'm interested to follow the likes of OpenRecall and see where it goes. For one, I'm a believer in platform-agnostic software. After all, when everyone benefits, everyone wins. Windows Recall being limited (officially) to certain hardware immediately makes it less attractive. I don't really want to buy a new laptop just to try it, but I could certainly get behind trying an alternative. I do find it a little funny, though, that there's so much negative public opinion surrounding Windows Recall, and yet, there are already efforts underway to recreate it. Maybe, the idea at least, isn't quite as bad as some would have us believe? Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every single day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of May): Nearly 2,400 news posts

Want to turn off Windows 11's built-in Recall feature? Here's how. Windows Recall is a new AI tool built-in to Windows 11 Copilot+ PCs that remembers everything you do on your computer. It enables the ability to semantically search for anything you've ever seen or done on your PC using natural language, and utilizes the neural processing unit (NPU) to process that information locally on device. The feature works by taking snapshots of your screen every few seconds and storing them locally on your hard drive. The Windows Recall app consists of a search bar and timeline, which lets you scroll back through all the saved snapshots and can show you what was on your screen at any point. If you don't want this feature, Microsoft has built-in a quick and easy way to disable it. Here's how to turn off Windows Recall and delete the data it has collected. How to disable Windows Recall 1. Open Windows Settings (WIN+I) 2. Select "Privacy & Security" in the sidebar. Windows Recall settings are stored in Windows' privacy area. (Image credit: Windows Central) 3. Select "Recall & Snapshots." The "Recall & snapshots" area in Settings lets you configure Windows Recall. (Image credit: Windows Central) 4. Toggle "Save Snapshots" to off. Ensure the "save snapshots" toggle is switched to off. (Image credit: Windows Central) 5. Select "Delete Snapshots." Turning off Windows Recall does not automatically delete the data it has collected. (Image credit: Windows Central) 6. Select "Delete All." You can delete all the data Windows Recall has collected here. (Image credit: Windows Central) 7. Close Windows Settings. Does my PC have Windows Recall? Most Windows PCs will not have access to Windows Recall right now, as the feature requires new hardware shipping under the Copilot+ PC umbrella. A Copilot+ PC is a device that features an NPU that can output at least 40 TOPS of power, along with 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD storage, and 8 logical processors. If your PC was purchased before June 18, 2024, it does not have Windows Recall. If your PC was purchased after June 18, 2024, it might have Windows Recall depending on if you purchased a Copilot+ PC. To check, just type "Recall" into the Windows Start Menu. If you see the Recall app, then your PC does have Recall installed and it can be disabled in Windows Settings by following the guide above. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every single day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of May): Nearly 2,400 news posts

Op-ed: The risks to Recall are way too high for security to be secondary. The Recall feature as it currently exists in Windows 11 24H2 preview builds. Andrew Cunningham Microsoft’s Windows 11 Copilot+ PCs come with quite a few new AI and machine learning-driven features, but the tentpole is Recall. Described by Microsoft as a comprehensive record of everything you do on your PC, the feature is pitched as a way to help users remember where they’ve been and to provide Windows extra contextual information that can help it better understand requests from and meet the needs of individual users. This, as many users in infosec communities on social media immediately pointed out, sounds like a potential security nightmare. That’s doubly true because Microsoft says that by default, Recall’s screenshots take no pains to redact sensitive information, from usernames and passwords to health care information to NSFW site visits. By default, on a PC with 256GB of storage, Recall can store a couple dozen gigabytes of data across three months of PC usage, a huge amount of personal data. The line between “potential security nightmare” and “actual security nightmare” is at least partly about the implementation, and Microsoft has been saying things that are at least superficially reassuring. Copilot+ PCs are required to have a fast neural processing unit (NPU) so that processing can be performed locally rather than sending data to the cloud; local snapshots are protected at rest by Windows’ disk encryption technologies, which are generally on by default if you’ve signed into a Microsoft account; neither Microsoft nor other users on the PC are supposed to be able to access any particular user’s Recall snapshots; and users can choose to exclude apps or (in most browsers) individual websites to exclude from Recall’s snapshots. This all sounds good in theory, but some users are beginning to use Recall now that the Windows 11 24H2 update is available in preview form, and the actual implementation has serious problems. “Fundamentally breaks the promise of security in Windows” This is Recall, as seen on a PC running a preview build of Windows 11 24H2. It takes and saves periodic screenshots, which can then be searched for and viewed in various ways. Andrew Cunningham Security researcher Kevin Beaumont, first in a thread on Mastodon and later in a more detailed blog post, has written about some of the potential implementation issues after enabling Recall on an unsupported system (which is currently the only way to try Recall since Copilot+ PCs that officially support the feature won’t ship until later this month). We've also given this early version of Recall a try on a Windows Dev Kit 2023, which we've used for all our recent Windows-on-Arm testing, and we've independently verified Beaumont's claims about how easy it is to find and view raw Recall data once you have access to a user's PC. To test Recall yourself, developer and Windows enthusiast Albacore has published a tool called AmperageKit that will enable it on Arm-based Windows PCs running Windows 11 24H2 build 26100.712 (the build currently available in the Windows Insider Release Preview channel). Other Windows 11 24H2 versions are missing the underlying code necessary to enable Recall. Windows uses OCR on all the text in all the screenshots it takes. That text is also saved to an SQLite database to facilitate faster searches. Andrew Cunningham Searching for "iCloud," for example, brings up every single screenshot with the word "iCloud" in it, including the app itself and its entry in the Microsoft Store. If I had visited websites that mentioned it, they would show up here, too. Andrew Cunningham The short version is this: In its current form, Recall takes screenshots and uses OCR to grab the information on your screen; it then writes the contents of windows plus records of different user interactions in a locally stored SQLite database to track your activity. Data is stored on a per-app basis, presumably to make it easier for Microsoft’s app-exclusion feature to work. Beaumont says “several days” of data amounted to a database around 90KB in size. In our usage, screenshots taken by Recall on a PC with a 2560×1440 screen come in at 500KB or 600KB apiece (Recall saves screenshots at your PC's native resolution, minus the taskbar area). Recall works locally thanks to Azure AI code that runs on your device, and it works without Internet connectivity and without a Microsoft account. Data is encrypted at rest, sort of, at least insofar as your entire drive is generally encrypted when your PC is either signed into a Microsoft account or has Bitlocker turned on. But in its current form, Beaumont says Recall has “gaps you can drive a plane through” that make it trivially easy to grab and scan through a user’s Recall database if you either (1) have local access to the machine and can log into any account (not just the account of the user whose database you’re trying to see), or (2) are using a PC infected with some kind of info-stealer virus that can quickly transfer the SQLite database to another system. Accessing another user's Recall data from another admin account on the same PC. This UAC prompt is the only thing keeping me out, and it's easily dismissed. Once I access the folder, I can see every single screenshot plus the SQLite database with all the OCR data in it. Andrew Cunningham Beaumont says admin access to the system isn’t required to read another user’s Recall database. Another user with an admin account can easily grab any other user’s Recall database and all the Recall screenshots by clicking through a simple UAC prompt. The SQLite database is stored in plain text, and data in transit isn’t encrypted, either, making it trivially easy to access both the stored database of past activity and to monitor new entries as Recall makes them. Screenshots are stored without a file extension, but they're regular old image files that can easily be opened and viewed in any web browser or image editor. The other big problem is that because Recall is on by default and you have to manually exclude specific apps or websites from being scraped by it, the SQLite database will keep records of activities that are explicitly meant to be hidden or temporary. That includes viewing pages in Incognito mode in some browsers, emails or messages that you delete from your device, and files that you edit or delete. Beaumont says he is holding off on publishing some details to “give [Microsoft] time to do something” about the feature as it is currently implemented. But he has pointed to efforts like this “TotalRecall” script as an example of how quickly and easily Recall data can be stolen and searched. Recall does give users some control over what it does; apps and websites can be excluded, recent data can be deleted without clearing the entire database; and the feature can be switched off entirely. But the default settings will capture a huge amount of user data. Andrew Cunningham The UI for excluding apps from Recall's scraping. Andrew Cunningham Filtering sites is done by entering URLs. Andrew Cunningham There are mitigating factors here. Recall will begin by shipping on just a handful of new Windows 11 systems. It can be turned off entirely if you don’t want to use it, and the controls to disable Recall snapshots for certain apps or sites theoretically give users enough control that they can use Recall as intended without storing overly sensitive information in the database. But given the sheer amount of data that Recall scrapes, the minimal safeguards Microsoft has put in place to protect that database once a malicious user has access to your PC, and the fact that many PC users never touch the default settings, the risks to user data seem far higher than the potential benefits of this feature. Microsoft has struggled with security and privacy in its products. Not even a month ago, CEO Satya Nadella pledged to make security the most important thing at the company, following multiple high-profile data breaches and poorly handled information disclosures. Executive pay is being tied in part to security; rank and file employees are being told to “do security,” even when “faced with the tradeoff between security and another priority,” Nadella said. To launch Recall with such obviously exploitable security holes flies in the face of that directive. Microsoft is hard to trust right now Recall in the taskbar of a Windows 11 PC. Andrew Cunningham Even if Recall were locked down better, another problem is that Windows 11 has eroded its users' trust and patience over time by endlessly pushing Microsoft's other products and services and refusing to respect user choices once they've been made. The company frequently finds new places to put ads; a "clean install" of the operating system comes with unasked-for third-party apps and ongoing notifications about other Microsoft services; the Bing Chat feature and then Copilot were rolled out quickly to the entire user base despite being "preview" products prone to problems. None of this is directly related to Recall, but it demonstrates Microsoft's willingness to put revenue-squeezing ahead of the user experience, and that makes me inherently skeptical of Windows' AI features in general and Recall in particular. A huge searchable database of PC activity would be a holy grail for advertisers, and given how willing Microsoft has been to muck up Windows 11 in the last two and a half years, it's hard for me to trust that the company will stay committed to keeping the data collected by Recall completely private. Recall isn’t finalized. It won’t be available on the vast majority of Windows PCs. Even once Copilot+ PCs from Intel and AMD hit the market, it will take at least a year or two for compatible NPUs to show up in midrange and low-end PCs. Those who truly hate it will be able to turn it off, though the list of “at least you can uninstall it/turn it off!” things in Windows 11 is getting frustratingly long. We’ve also contacted Microsoft to ask about these concerns and whether the version of Recall that you can test on an Arm PC right now is the same one that end users will get on Copilot+ PCs; as of this writing, the company hasn’t responded. But let's put it this way: Microsoft is building a feature into Windows that is monitoring and logging a ton of data about you and the way you use your PC. Traditionally, we’d call this “spyware.” The difference is that Microsoft is giving this particular data collection feature its blessing and advertising it as a banner feature of its upcoming wave of Copilot+ PCs. The fact that the data is processed locally rather than in the cloud is a good first step, but it's also the bare minimum. Based on both the permissive default settings and the ease with which this data can be accessed, Recall’s security safeguards as they currently exist just aren't good enough. If Microsoft really does intend for everyone at the company to “do security,” it needs to put these concerns ahead of its apparently all-consuming drive to insert generative AI features into every single one of its products. Improving Recall before it becomes generally available needs to take priority, even if it delays the launch. Listing image by Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every single day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of May): Nearly 2,400 news posts

Microsoft unveiled "Recall" at its special event on May 20. This Copilot+ PC-exclusive feature promises to bring "photographic memory" to your computer, allowing going back to any app or file you worked with. To combat privacy concerns, Microsoft published a page with details on how Recall works. However, security researchers strongly disagree with the company's statements. Kevin Beaumont, a cybersecurity expert, published a detailed blog post on Medium where he dug deeper into how Recall works. The verdict is a rather harsh one: stealing everything you viewed or typed on your computer is now very easy. Beaumont claims that the idea of Recall is an interesting feature that requires "incredibly careful communication, cybersecurity, engineering, and implementation." Sadly, Recall allegedly has none of those. Although the data processing and encryption are indeed happening on-device only, all that info is not immune to hackers and malware. The encryption will protect your data if the attacker doesn't know your username and password, but things change when hackers get a hold of your credentials using infostealers. Recall works by taking screenshots of everything that happens on your computer every few seconds. Then, the system OCRs (recognizes optical characters) that data and puts it into a database in the user folder. Everything is stored in plain text, and there is no need for system rights to access it. Kevin Beaumont created a website that can process a Recall database and instantly search for anything inside it. However, he is holding the project back until Microsoft ships it or maybe does something to improve security. Kevin says, "the wider cyber community will have so much fun with this when generally available." Things get worse when you realize what is stored in your Recall database: Customers should also know that deleting emails, messages, pictures, files, or anything else on your computer will not delete them from Recall—it stays there indefinitely or until manually deleted/overwritten. Although Microsoft Defender is pretty good at detecting infostealers and malware, "off the shelf" malware can scrape the entire database before automated detection kicks in. Beaumont claims Microsoft "should recall Recall" and rework the feature to address all the privacy concerns, especially in light of Satya Nadella saying engineers should prioritize security over any other priority. You can read the full story in Kevin's Medium post. If you still want to try Recall and see how it works, check out this third-party app that makes it possible to enable the feature on existing hardware (with caveats). It remains to be seen how Microsoft will address these revelations. For now, Recall is technically available in the Release Preview Channel of the Windows Insider program. It is expected to arrive for the general public with the first Copilot+ PCs, such as the new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Sincere thank you for your Feedback and Likes.

Squashing the FUD around Windows Recall. Since Microsoft announced Windows 11's big next-gen AI feature push, the internet has been up in arms over Windows Recall, the company's magnum opus AI experience that's exclusive to Copilot+ PCs launching this summer. While some responses have been sane, a large percentage of people have wasted no time spreading FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) over this new feature without really understanding it. In case you've been living under a rock: Windows Recall is a new feature that will take snapshots of your screen every few seconds and use on-device AI to analyze and triage that content. This allows you to semantically search for anything and everything you've ever done on your computer using natural language, and is arguably the next generation of search of Windows. Unsurprisingly, this has led to many people calling Recall a spyware tool for Microsoft to watch everything we do on our computers, which is a particularly unfair description of the feature. Microsoft is actually taking privacy and security very seriously, and this article attempts to explain how, and why your worries about Windows Recall are unfounded. Windows Recall data is encrypted on your device Windows Recall is encrypted on your device, and its data is not shared across accounts. (Image credit: Microsoft) First thing is first, the snapshots and strings of text that Windows Recall logs are safely encrypted on your PC using Device Encryption and Bitlocker. This means if your laptop is ever stolen, intruders can't access the contents of your storage without an encryption key, and they won't be able to gain access to any stored snapshots without being logged in to your account. Additionally, Microsoft also says that Windows Recall does not integrate with other apps or services. This means it's not sharing stored data with other Windows services or apps, and the only time it does share a snapshot is when the user manually initiates the share button in Recall. When this happens, Recall will make a copy of the snapshot and place it in C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Temp. Once the share is complete, Windows will delete the snapshot from that temp directory. While Windows Recall does have an API, this is only for developers to create a seamless experience, jumping from snapshot into a live app. It does not allow the app access to Recall's stored snapshots. Windows Recall does not send your data to the cloud Microsoft cannot see your snapshots as they don't get uploaded to the cloud. (Image credit: Microsoft) This is arguably the most important point to hammer home: Windows Recall does not talk to the cloud. It does not send your data from your device to Microsoft servers. This includes snapshots, strings of text, and search queries. Microsoft cannot see anything that Windows Recall collects, and this is by design. The entire Windows Recall experience is processed on device, which is partly why it requires a Copilot+ PC to function. Microsoft is offloading the resources required to process a feature like this onto the NPU, which is a secure chip that's powerful enough to handle the processing of snapshots using AI with little power draw. This means Windows Recall works 100% offline, and you don't need an active internet connection to take advantage of it. It doesn't even require a Microsoft Account, and as a result is missing some quality of life features such as cross-device syncing. None of that is possible here, because Windows Recall does not upload your data anywhere. Microsoft is not training any AI models on your data Recall is an entirely offline experience. No internet required (after initial setup) (Image credit: Microsoft) Microsoft said this on stage, but just to reiterate: Microsoft does not train its AI models on Windows Recall data. This is because, once again, Windows Recall does not upload your data to the cloud. Microsoft cannot see it, because it's encrypted on your device, and so it cannot train AI models on the snapshots that Recall has captured on your device. This also means Windows Recall cannot be used to tailor ads and services in your favor, as the data Recall collects is only ever used by the Recall app. Windows Recall is completely optional You can configure pretty much all aspects of Recall. (Image credit: Microsoft) If all of that doesn't settle your nerves, Windows Recall is a completely optional experience. You absolutely do not have to use it if you don't want to. On a Copilot+ PC, you will be prompted during the out of box setup experience to enable Windows Recall. If you choose not to, the Windows Recall feature will be rendered inoperable. It can't function because Windows Recall requires a large initial download before it can be used, as it's an entirely offline experience and does not rely on cloud services to function. Without this download, Windows Recall isn't able to run. Windows Recall cannot run "secretly" in the background There is a visual indicator always on-screen when Recall is active. (Image credit: Microsoft) One big conspiracy theory I've heard is that Microsoft will automatically enable Windows Recall in the background without the user knowing. This isn't possible, as Windows Recall places a permanent visual indicator in the Taskbar's system tray when it's enabled. Additionally, for Windows Recall to be automatically enabled, it would need to download that large initial patch to even function. This is all to say that Windows Recall won't be randomly enabled on your computer without your knowledge. There are visual indicators permanently in view when Recall is active. You can choose what Windows Recall even sees You can filter out websites and apps, which works in the most popular browsers. (Image credit: Microsoft) Windows Recall has built-in filtering options that allow users to control exactly what Windows can see and store. If you don't want Windows Recall to take snapshots of a particular app or website, you can filter those out with just a few clicks. If Recall happens to capture something you weren't expecting, you can immediately delete the snapshot directly within the Recall app. You can even pause snapshots whenever you like, just by selecting the Windows Recall icon that's permanently present on the Taskbar. You can also choose how frequently Windows Recall deletes old snapshots, and limit the amount of storage it takes up on your PC. Windows Recall also cannot see DRM content, or any private browsing sessions in Edge, Chrome, Opera, and Firefox. There are legitimate concerns Microsoft is doing everything it can to assure users that Windows Recall is safe to use, but that doesn't mean there are no concerns. The biggest concern is an intruder gaining physical access to your device while you're logged in. If that happens, yeah, you're kinda screwed. Microsoft could remedy this in the future with the option to enable Windows Hello unlock on the Recall app, which would keep your snapshots safe in this scenario. It's also good to be skeptical of Microsoft and their claims. With that said, I think it would be wild for Microsoft to outright be lying about not upload Recall data to the cloud, as that's one of the first things people are going to check for. It will be very easy to prove if it is or isn't sending personal data to Microsoft. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post, feedback and Likes welcome

Turns out you can run Windows Recall in Windows 11 without a Copilot+ PC and a powerful NPU, but is it worth it? What you need to know Microsoft unveiled a host of next-gen AI features that will ship with Windows 11 exclusively to Copilot+ PCs with powerful NPUs. A user bypassed these stringent requirements and got Windows Recall to work on Arm64 hardware. The feature's user experience is laggy and slow, as seen in the video demo, demonstrating the need for a powerful NPU. While Microsoft's stringent requirements limit its new and controversial Windows 11 Recall feature to Copilot+ PCs with powerful NPUs like Qualcomm's Snapdragon X chips, Windows sleuth Albacore has seemingly found a cheat code that lets the neat feature run on traditional Windows 11 PCs, spotting Arm64 hardware (via TechRadar). Per the video by the well-known Windows hacker Albacore, the feature functions precisely as Microsoft explained. However, the demo is a tad laggy, reiterating Microsoft's NPU threshold for running AI features in Windows 11 smoothly. As you may know, an NPU (Neural Processing Unit) is designed to help light the processing power load from the GPU and CPU on PCs, fostering better performance. The video highlights how the screenray function will work on Windows 11 Recall. Screenray is when you enter context-sensitive mode and leverage Windows 11 Recall's capabilities to trace back your steps. Albacore added that the feature "should theoretically work on Intel/AMD too; OEMs only received Arm64 specific ML model bundles, so there's not much I can do yet." Windows Recall causes security and privacy concerns "One of the dreams we've always had is how do we introduce memory," stated Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella while talking to The Wall Street Journal's Joanna Stern about Windows 11's new and controversial AI feature, Windows Recall. "Right? Photographic memory into what you do on your PC? And now we have it." During Microsoft's special Windows and Surface event, the company announced a host of next-gen AI features shipping to Windows 11 as part of the Windows 11 2024 Update (version 24H2), including Live Captions, Windows Recall, and more. The latter stole the show, raising user concerns over security and privacy issues. Windows Recall runs in the background of your PC and captures snapshots of everything you see and do, enabling the ability to search for anything you've ever done on your PC with natural language. Microsoft promises that the feature is 100% privacy-focused since it runs on-device via NPU. It's presented to users as an opt-in experience, and users can disable it at any time via the settings. What's more, you can restrict the feature from grabbing screenshots from specific apps or websites (which are stored locally on your PC). Users can also choose how long they'd like the screenshots stored and how much space is dedicated to this function. Interestingly, the only way to get the new Recall feature is by buying a new Copilot+ PC. This is because the feature relies on a powerful NPU for its function. Microsoft has remained quiet if/when it plans to ship the next-gen AI features to traditional Windows 11 PCs without/with less powerful NPUs. Windows 11 Recall is impressive and controversial, but at the same time, there's so much it can help you achieve. And despite Microsoft's 100% privacy-focused promise and running the feature locally with on-device NPU, users have blatantly expressed their reservations toward the feature. Some users have even indicated that they'll soon transition to other operating systems like Linux as Windows 10's end-of-support looms. Elon Musk even compares the AI feature to a Black Mirror episode. In the interim, the UK data watchdog is investigating Microsoft's new controversial AI feature to determine the safeguards to protect user privacy. Source You're welcome

Recall, the feature Microsoft announced for Windows 11 at its May 20 event, is certainly an interesting addition to the operating system. Unfortunately, getting your hands on it requires buying one of the recently unveiled Copilot+ PCs with Qualcomm Snapdragon X Series processors. However, as expected, enthusiasts have already backported Recall to existing hardware, even on quite low-powered Windows on ARM devices. Albacore, who goes by the @thebookisclosed on X, announced today that they managed to get Recall working on a quite low-end PC with the Snapdragon 7cx processor and 4GB of RAM. Although the 7cx is an ARM chip, it does not have a built-in NPU, plus just 3.4GB of available memory makes things seemingly much more challenging (especially considering that the official requirement is a minimum of 16GB RAM). Despite the limitations, Albacore said the feature works "surprisingly good." Also, the author promised to release a detailed guide soon so that owners of Surface Pro X and other Windows on ARM devices can get their hands on Recall. As for x86, things are a bit more challenging since the ML models for developers include mostly ARM64 packages. Still, you should eventually be able to run Recall on an x86 machine. The idea of Recall is both interesting and slightly worrying. Although Microsoft has already made it clear that all the processing happens on-device and no data leaves your computer, many users expressed concern over the idea of Windows 11 taking a screenshot of literally everything on the screen every few minutes. However, it is worth noting that Windows 11 will let you specify what apps should never be snapshotted or just toggle it off. Recall will be available as part of the upcoming Windows 11 version 24H2, which is now available for public testing in the Release Preview Channel, which is the final step before the public release. Source You're welcome

Windows Recall has as many benefits as concerns. On Windows 11, the Windows Recall feature uses AI to track everything you do on your computer and makes the content searchable with simply natural language queries. It works like a photography memory, allowing you to scroll back in time to find files, folders, images, apps, messages, text, and more. In a sense, it's another attempt for Microsoft to bring back the Timeline feature that failed to gain popularity on Windows 10. The key to Windows Recall is the ability to use multiple AI models running concurrently on the computer to analyze and understand the content and context of each snapshot stored locally on the computer. Although this feature leverages AI to create a searchable digital memory of everything you do on your device, is it all sunshine and rainbows? While Windows Recall offers many benefits, it also raises privacy concerns and other questions. To help you decide if this new timeline powered by AI feature is for you, I will explore five key reasons why you should – and shouldn't – use Windows Recall on your computer. 5 Reasons to use Windows Recall These are the five top reasons to use the new timeline feature on Windows 11. (Image credit: Microsoft) 1. Easy content retrieval If you ever forget where you saved an important document, lose track of a tab with a particular website, or don't remember where you saw those black jeans, Windows Recall makes it super easy to find any content and re-engage with it. In the "Recall" app, you can perform a simple search by asking questions as you would typically ask another person, and then the feature will understand the search intent and context to provide the most relevant information. 2. Improve productivity Another reason to use Windows Recall is because it helps you be more productive at work, school, and home. In the past, you could have spent a lot of time trying to remember where you saved a document, spreadsheet, or presentation, but now, a simple search from any queue you remember can help you find any on the computer. 3. User-friendly interface While the Windows Recall feature relies on many components to make it all work, Microsoft has come up with an experience that anyone can use. The app includes a search box front and center to start searching quickly, and it's hard to miss. You also have the "Timeline" option that allows you to easily scroll in time to find content you have interacted with in the past, even if you don't remember anything about that content. The results are well organized in categories, and when choosing a snapshot, the feature makes it easy to copy anything to the clipboard or access the application with content you want to re-engage. 4. Offline operation Since this feature stores the snapshots locally on the computer inside the new Windows Semantic Index and relies on several AI models that are part of the Windows Copilot Runtime, every process happens on-device, meaning that no data is uploaded to the cloud for processing. This means that Windows Recall can work without an internet connection. This also relaxes the concerns about privacy, as Microsoft promises that everything happens locally on the computer. Also, the company says that it won't use the user's data to train its AI models. 5. Customization Another good reason to use Windows Recall on Windows 11 is that you can control the feature in a number of ways. For example, in the "Recall and snapshots" page, you can enable or disable the feature. You can change the allocation space to store snapshots, depending on the drive capacity. If you notice that the feature took a snapshot of sensitive information, or you're troubleshooting issues, you can always use the snapshots stored on your computer. If you don't want Windows Recall to save information from a specific website or application, you can exclude them using the filters option. 5 Reasons not to use Windows Recall Although there are many benefits to using the Windows Recall feature, there are some other reasons not to use it. (Image credit: Feature) 1. Privacy concerns One of the top concerns about this feature is privacy. Microsoft has explained many times that Windows Recall stores the snapshots on the computer, and the feature uses on-device AI models to process the information. However, it'll never be clear whether or not the feature sends any type of data to the company's servers. Also, knowing that you will always have a feature tracking your every move with screenshots, it's not something anyone feels comfortable using. 2. Security concerns Security is also another concern for many users because the feature itself doesn't seem to include any type of security. Instead, Microsoft relies on the security available in the operating system to protect your data. For example, the Windows Recall data is only encrypted if you configure BitLocker on Windows 11 Pro or Device Encryption of Windows 11 Home. The feature isn't password protected, meaning that if you configure the device to log in automatically, anyone with physical access to the computer can check and find out everything you have been doing on your computer. Also, Windows Recall doesn't moderate content on the snapshots, meaning that passwords, bank account numbers, and other sensitive information will be even more easily accessible if at any time you paste this information in plain text anywhere, or you have to review your information from any of your accounts. 3. Huge storage allocation Windows Recall isn't cheap in storage since it requires a lot of space to build and maintain the database. If you have a device with 256GB SSD, the default space allocation will be 25GB. On a 512GB SSD, the default storage allocation will be 75GB, and if you have a 1TB SSD, the default space allocation will be 150GB. Furthermore, it's important to note that 25GB will only store up to three months of Recall data, so if you want to go further in time, you will only have to allocate more space, but you may also need to upgrade the storage to change the settings. 4. Hardware requirements One of the biggest disappointments of the Windows Recall feature is the system requirements and exclusivity. If you're interested in using this timeline feature, you will need a Copilot Plus PC. This means that you will need a device featuring an NPU (Neural Processing Unit) of at least 40 TOPS, which, at the time of the writing, is only available on the Qualcomm Snapdragon X processors. In addition, you will need a system with at least 256GB hard drive and 16GB of RAM. In other words, if you're reading this on May 2024, you will need to purchase a new computer to use Windows Recall regardless how new your device was prior to this. 5. Not a complete search feature Sure, Microsoft is touting this feature as something you can count on to find anything (such as files, folders, messages, emails, pictures, etc.), but remember, this is for anything you have done on your computer. If you haven't opened a file, Windows Recall won't have a record of it, so you won't be able to find it. Also, as the storage allocation fills up, the feature will start deleting the oldest snapshots to make space for newer information. If you have the feature to set to a space allocation of 25GB, you won't be able to find a document, website, or image after three months. I'm noting this as a reason to consider because a lot of people will think that this is the new search for Windows 11, but it's not. Windows Recall can only retrieve information from snapshots from the limited Windows Semantic Index that deletes data as the storage fills up. On the other hand, Windows Search is always running and indexing all your files to make them searchable through traditional keyword queries, and even if you reset the search index, the system will be recreated again by scanning your files again. I guess you can think of Windows Recall as a short-term photographic memory and Windows Search as a less capable long-term memory. Source You're welcome