There's an article from Sep 27th where they promise you'll be able to uninstall Recall: https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/27/24255721/microsoft-window... , not sure what that means for this explorer.exe dependency.
> "Activity history: Jump back into what you were doing on your device by storing your activity history, including info about websites you browse and how you use apps and services. Review the Learn more and Privacy Statement to find out how Microsoft products and services use this data to personalize experiences while respecting your privacy"
"Copilot" also quietly turned up on my Windows 10 taskbar not long ago. I certainly didn't opt to install it.
Another update not long after it appeared again in my taskbar, this time not as a pinned app icon, but it literally replaced my "show desktop" button in the bottom right corner! I had to search online for other confused people looking to restore a basic desktop navigation feature that's been around since like 2009, because they replaced it with the 17th ever-present option to jump into their preinstalled bloatware!
And just as a sidenote, Microsoft Copilot is by far the worst LLM I've tried to use, both in how dumb it is, but also in how infuriating it is when it gets stuff wrong while spamming a bunch of stupid emojis into every sentence like it's excited about how confidently stupid it is.
New is extra data collection and Copilot "understanding" your activities based on those records.
Source: https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2024/09/27/updat...
an hour? maybe two?
Apple Intelligence will index all of your messages, app data, etc. into a queryable index. That will also obviously reside on disk somewhere, encrypted. And it could be just as exfiltratable as your hypothetical. (Because both cases require compromising the host computer)
For every real user that finds a tool slurping up data to be useful, there are 100 law enforcement agents also saying it's useful so everyone should hop on the bandwagon.
The commonality of strange beliefs like this makes me seriously wonder if there is an initiative on social media to teach this form of thinking as being correct, because it is certainly the default. Try defecting from the game for a month and watch the other players from the sidelines, and see if you don't see what I'm talking about.
It is strange because that's exactly the opposite of how a corporation operates. If every employee (or even too many) employees are aware of the decision making process, that process stalls out.
The default view should be: the person at the top is being the one contacted, and the employees are not in the know.
All out in the public view (essentially)
Plus it is not necessarily knowable.
> and know they'll have access to the data anyway
Here we agree.
it's supposed to be local. <------ YOU ARE HERE
you can supposedly disable it.
it's supposed not to send your information to the cops if it's sees you being naughty.
It's supposed to be local.
Broad, anonymized statistics are aggregated by Microsoft.
Including your name.
It's only available to Microsoft's marketing department.
It's available to third-party affiliates.
A handful of resellers are affiliated.
Insurance companies, employers and law enforcement have as much of a right to buy the information as anyone else.
"Okay, it'll send your information to the cops, but only if it sees you doing something REALLY, REALLY bad, and we pinky-promise we will not let cops in authoritarian countries decide what that means".
(Remember the iCloud photo scanning controversy?)
If you've got nothing to hide you've got nothing to worry over.
Why do you worry? What do you have to hide?
Don't leave your house, a Black Maria is on its way to pick you up.
Yeah, you'll have to bring some sources for me to begin buying that. It goes totally against everything Microsoft and OpenAI have been pushing.
I also noticed that games from Steam end up taking up substantially more disk space to the point where I can have only a few games installed on Linux.
And even the games without any special hardware dongles don't work so well as you imply.
This is a nice, specific detail. Most of these comments are very vague.
> There is a driver for an older version of the wheel that kind of works
Do you mean an out of tree driver?
Would you test this and post back? The 6.3 kernel they mentioned 3 months ago is very old and likely a forked kernel.
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/vb0b37/g29g92...
I am new to steering wheels-not sure if this is the exact version because they mention xbox)? Try a distro with a very recent kernel (6.11; like Nobara for a gaming focused distro).
> I also noticed that games from Steam end up taking up substantially more disk space to the point where I can have only a few games installed on Linux.
Shouldn't be substantially more disk space. Would you provide stats?
Proton makes a Windows environment for each game as it installs those 3rd party libraries in the environment and that is used for disk calculations, while on Windows those libraries may be installed directly to the OS. Each 3rd party library and the shader cache is stored separately. This is my guess-I do not work on Proton.
> And even the games without any special hardware dongles don't work so well as you imply.
Anticheat and a few obscure Windows libraries are an issue. River City Girls needs some media foundation library or it does not show cutscenes. Valve is working on them.
My steam system is somewhat questionable. it is netbooted, everything is nfs. This... well, it sort of sucks, I would not recommend it. But I love having the "one good drive" my NAS and then using that for everything, I am patient So I am sticking with it. But the "rebuilding shader cache". what is it doing? why does it take so long? why does it do it every time a launch a game? why am I offered a choice to skip it? why do I not notice any difference if I skip it?
I have a 10G connection to my nas but things are still much slower than I think they should be. I think it is related to poor interaction between nfs and a lot of small files. Otherwise, linux and proton are working great for games. When running games on windows I used iscsi for my games, and that worked well, I should probably do that on linux but I like having a filesystem on the far side instead of an opaque block device so I thought I would try nfs.
There are some weird artifacts in the system, I have to start steam twice, The first time it fails to connect to the webhelper, once everything is cached, it starts faster and thus works the second time, the shader cache takes forever and a day to rebuild, I can manually empty it which helps the next rebuild, I suspect many small files, having to check and replace them one by one, but I don't know, nfs tuning is somewhat of a dark art. Steam does not get along with my favorite tiling window manger(spectrwm) so I thought I would try that other openbsd floating window manager(CWM), steam is happier, but still has a few artifacts with menus, I suspect the CWM zero sized borders are the cause.
Overall, The experience is much worse than on windows, but that is because I made it that way, and so I am much happier than when I am on windows.
Does that happen for every game, or just specific ones?
Asking because this is a behaviour I saw for a short time (week or two?) a few years ago, but these days it'll just do the "rebuilding shader cache" thing once for a game. Mostly after upgrading the Nvidia driver to a new release.
> I have a 10G connection to my nas but things are still much slower than I think they should be. I think it is related to poor interaction between nfs and a lot of small files.
That sounds more like your NAS is using hard drives (slow, especially in an array) rather than ssd's. Is that the case?
> There are some weird artifacts in the system, I have to start steam twice, The first time it fails to connect to the webhelper, once everything is cached, it starts faster and thus works the second time ...
Yeah, that really does sound like your storage isn't set up optimally, so is timing out as Steam loads into cache on your NAS. :(
Out of curiosity, what kind of NAS is it? :)
You are probably correct about the nas, it is full of wd reds, that is, the very slow supposedly reliable drives. I was prioritizing cheap bulk space when I built it, hoping the infamous zfs cache would save me. On your not quite advise I will probably add a ssd pool and see how that affects the whole system.
The nas is a 5 year old home built clone of a IX systems truenas box. 32gb memory.
Thank you very much for your kind words on the subject. It is more than I deserve for my screwball system.
There's one thing you might want to try first though, which is to create an iSCSI volume from your hard disk pool and try running your Steam library from that instead of NFS.
iSCSI is a "single user at a time" access thing (unlike NFS), but the caching acts differently to nfs so you might get a better result. Or not. ;)
Am suggesting that as it could be useful to try prior to spending money on ssds. :)
The actual mounting of your TrueNAS iSCSI volume from a Linux box just needs the installation of "open-iscsi" (on Debian anyway).
You run the appropriate iscsiadm command to log in to the iSCSI portal, then mount it:
# iscsiadm --mode node --targetname "iqn.2005-10.org.freenas.ctl:myshare1" --portal myserver --login
# mount -o noatime /dev/disk/by-label/NAME_OF_THE_SHARE_IN_TRUENAS /Games
Unmounting the iSCSI share afterwards is the standard umount command, then you log out of the iSCSI portal: # umount /Games
# iscsiadm --mode node --targetname "iqn.2005-10.org.freenas.ctl:myshare1" --portal myserver --logout
Anyway, hope that helps. :) When running games on windows I used iscsi for my games, and that worked well ...
Ahhh well. If you want to try iSCSI for the Linux side of things too, then the above might help. :)Using an ssd pool on the nas will be your best bet though. With a 10GbE connection it'll feel like a natively attached ssd, which sounds like it'd be a massive improvement for you. :D
And if you DO have a driver, why does the fucking game have to have a list of supported steering wheels? Shouldn't that be abstracted away from the game? Isn't that the whole point of all those gaming and device APIs that Microsoft has built?
The experience with racing games isn't great on Windows, it's going to be worse on Linux where manufacturers put exactly zero investment into making it work and the crossover between sim racers and Linux developers is very small.
if it were a perfect replacemente, there would be no Windows.
for some it's good enough to endure the rough spots.
if you want to replace Windows and give yourself a gray area, and you can afford it, get a computer with 2 gpus and use a VM with VFIO and looking glass and you can contain its naughtiness away while enojoying it at native speed for gaming or whatever you want at 4k@120hz in a window or fullscreen inside Linux.
Windows can see what I want it to see and not the whole machine. It has completely broken my trust.
There's one answer you might provide when you've the luxury to start things over and ramp up on all the differences, but practical reality is that you rarely have that luxury. Fluency and confidence in the tools you already use provides strong resistance to switching, even if alternatives promise they're ready to meet your needs.
So, that's a yes?
0. https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/photoshop-web-faq.ht...
Adobe would be able to try a vertical integration play
Until then, I am dual booting.
By default steam wants to download the old old old Linux version that doesn't allow online play, but if you enable proton it will download the Windows version and run fine. I am pretty sure it doesn't have a real anti-cheat included.
SDL_VIDEODRIVER=windows,x11 %command%
This is a typical problem with EAC.Riot's Vanguard on the other hand, has unfortunately made it impossible to play LoL =c
Solidworks made its name by being the first mainstream CAD built for Windows back when all the other 3D CAD was running UNIX workstations that cost more than a new pickup truck. Both Solidworks, and the Autodesk competitor to it, Inventor, are Windows API through and through. It is disappointing, but unsurprising that they don't do well in WINE. They went all in on Windows to their core from the very start.
If it can, I am switching to Linux immediately.
That's a huge show stopper for me at the moment and holding me back from switching over to Linux.
1. Install Monado with libsurvive.
2. Discover that libsurvive doesn't have the "smarts" that SteamVR has, and that calibration can be wonky (and was wonky for me).
3. Learn that you can import SteamVR calibration data. I can't do this in Linux because, well, SteamVR doesn't work.
4. Dual boot Windows with the intention to copy over calibration data.
5. Windows is installed. Give up and dual boot.
https://monado.freedesktop.org/libsurvive.html
If anyone else has had success, I would love to hear about it.
Performance, especially in Beat Saber, was great and better than SteamVR!
I would expect SteamVR to at least work enough for calibration. You could try switching to beta or other versions.
I am especially annoyed that they more or less dropped the ball when it comes to Beat Saber via Proton. Beat Saber was an official launch title for Proton, but was unplayable for months [1].
SteamVR is playable, but not at Windows level and rough around the edges. I personally run an Index on a 4080 Super (previously 3080) via the SteamVR runtime. System details in case it matters: Arch Linux Zen kernel, X11 (i3), Nvidia drivers, SteamVR Beta, usually a recent Proton GE version. I remember playing Beat Saber, including modded [1], Until You Fall, Pistol Whip, Raw Data and After the Fall without issues. Non-steam applications outside Steam can also work, I have a launch script that sets up the env vars for Proton, should be easier via Lutris.
I see some problems however. VR itself is not as smooth as it should be, 100% playable, but not as smooth as I remember it ages ago on Windows or using a FOSS VR [4] stack (which has other issues). I don't really use SteamVR home, it sometimes takes a while to load. SteamVR window on the monitor has weird flickering issues, usually I can't get into its settings, likely i3 related. Firmware updates are mostly broken. No (I think) standby for the Lighthouses, I toggle them via Home Assistant and smart plugs.
Shout out to steamtinkerlaunch [2] for making certain settings easier to apply and ProtonDB [3] for tweaks if needed.
[1] https://github.com/geefr/beatsaber-linux-goodies [2] https://github.com/sonic2kk/steamtinkerlaunch [3] https://www.protondb.com/ [4] https://monado.freedesktop.org/ https://lvra.gitlab.io/
Is it something involving certified OpenGL drivers?
I'm having a hard time keeping track of all of the registry keys and config settings I need to update to keep this crap at bay.
I looked into it in 2018; turned out to be pretty easy and reasonable (~$300):
Ms just finally released the installation media for ltsc win11
Windows 10 basically unusable on my GPD Pocket 1 without about as many tweaks as I can make to it. However, once properly tweaked it's actually pretty usable for pretty heavy coding tasks. It has a good amount of RAM but a pretty slow drive.
I don't bother tweaking my Windows 11 machine so heavily except to turn off everything that makes sense to turn off. These are all settings that Microsoft provides themselves but are only available via group policy or registry keys. Thankfully there are tools that not only make it easy to change but also explain the consequences and provide recommendations.
If I were to describe myself as "Pro user" or "hacker" would you assume I don't actually know better? That seems pretty uncharitable.
It should be technically easy for Microsoft to decouple Recall from Explorer. I already saw this in the 90s with their web browser, coupled to the OS for purely commercial reasons.
People are willing to run highly privileged untrusted and unverified code in the personal computers, just for a chance to remove the stuff you're actively spending money and time developing.
Honestly Windows 10 is/was pretty good once you removed the MS malware but they're definitely antagonistic as a whole.
those dubious scripts from who-knows-where are run by me, with intent and with my consent, having passed whatever my own personal review process might be for that particular script.
If I try something and it turns out bad, that's on me, and I'm okay with that. If something is done to me without my knowledge or consent and it turns out bad, then that's a different story.
That's ok, I'm critizing those that run these scripts without checking (and understanding!) them and then blame Microsoft when things go south (think of the "stick in own bicycle" meme). This is not a defense of Microsoft, they are also to blame that users feel the need to run these scripts because dubious stuff like Recall gets added and/or automatically activated without asking.
Remember when the retort from Windows users against Linux was "Linux is only free if your time has no value?"
Being a dependency of explorer.exe implies that it can't be disabled. To explain further: explorer.exe is responsible for your task bar, start menu, etc.
The thread describes a much more minimal kind of dependency. More like the dark pattern variety which is hard to turn off.
But assuming they do this, you can enable unsigned driver installation (there's a valid use case for that), but I'm not sure you can get explorer.exe to load unsigned libraries. Maybe! Explorer.exe is a user mode process, so it's way less bad than other system processes.
Be sure to backup your system first. Blackbird thoroughly rips away whatever you choose.
It generates the script for you based on your requirements. Looks extremely detailed with long descriptions.
KDE and Kubuntu are pretty close though. I'd never really considered fully switching to Linux a usable option before I found it, but I've been running it for a few years on my laptop and recently on my work pc, and once Win10 is EoL it'll probably be the only thing I still run on the rest of my machines. The nice side effect of bloated Electron apps is that at least now most things work on all platforms lmao.
I recommend ALL these sites, and would only add Black Viper:
https://www.tenforums.com/performance-maintenance/18394-blac...
and...
Windows 10 Integral Edition:
Zone 94 and the Internet archive are temporarily offline,
Hopefully MassGrave.dev is still working.
download && install rufus
flash usb drive with linuxmint
backup files
reboot and boot from the usb drive
wipe system drive and install linuxmint
Incredible feeling of zen being able to scroll past the heated online Win 11 debates that don’t seem to apply to my day to day usage at all.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/client-management/...
Whatever you do, the GPO / Registry key doesn't work on Non-Education / SE systems.
If you apply it on an Education version, the StartMenuShellExperienceHost (you may need to shuffle those words around) will read the settings. Nothing on my Workstation version.
Now, it MIGHT work if you push it through MDM, but MDMs cost money, and I haven't been able to find a self-hostable MDM that is up to date.
Under Settings > Personalization > Start, I have "More pins" selected, and the various "Show whatever" options disabled, and my "Recommended" section is a single empty row at the bottom of the start menu that reads "To show your recent files and new apps, turn them on in the Settings."
Additionally for O&O shut up fans, it has the option to launch that too within the script's GUI, as neither has to be installed to run
There's a lot of 'marketing' possible and a receptive audience whenever a big tech company pushes something like Copilot/Recall, and I'm sure a well timed or prompt 'quick and simple fix' tool release with some a time pressure could get a lot of installs.
I run this on any new Win install. I also suggest Portmaster so you know where your data is going.
Security through obscurity.
The security, though, is for Windows features not user’s protection.
Windows 7 was the last good OS from MSFT but even that had a bit of telemetry.
Sadly I never had the chance to experience it and went with Windows ME. :(
Sadly even macOS has gotten more annoying over the years with its various nagging prompts.
this whole deal with recall slowly creeping in after the initial rejection is the worst case of just-the-tip I've seen people accept.
will anyone be surprised when it gets enabled in an update by mistake, not to mention by spyware.
> the latest commit to the draft PR now does the following. It leaves Recall enabled, but then it disables it on the first run. During my testing, it kept the explorer look intact
What about any company with Trade Secret information? Are they also not to use Microsoft Products now?
"Oh no it knows a program was run" is not 'as bad' of a HIIPA violation as, "Oh no, it's literally taking a screenshot, reading it and saving it".
Don't you mean to the ribbon-UI version? Explorer switched from having a traditional menubar with a text-only context-sensitive toolbar (as in Vista and 7) to using the ribbon in Windows 8 and Windows 10; Windows 11 had the new dumbed-down explorer UI design since day-one (though in earlier builds of Win11 the ribbon UI could still be restored in Windows 11 using tweaks - or simply via bugs in explorer: https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows11/comments/s3nilb/you_can_g... ) - it looks like MS fully removed the old code at the same time they added Recall support?
There are no new features in W11 that are worth enduring the absolute bloated spyware-ridden POS that it is.
https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/create-portable-windows-...
Rufus + Windows To Go + an external SSD = I'm able to use windows when I want, the rest of the time it stays in a drawer.
None of this is to insult anybody who prioritizes things differently, or anybody who feels more strongly about how much of a problem the stuff that MS does is. I just view it as one of the many things that it's easier not to worry too much about in order for things to go more smoothly.
I can't believe the EU is wasting all this time on making it so you can... uninstall the camera app on your iPhone? Even the worst parts of iOS are so much less egregious than every interaction I have with Windows. At least people have the option to not use an iPhone. With Windows, people literally don't have alternatives. Their business' accounting software, or whatever domain-specific program is on there and has no plans of getting ported anywhere else.
Or maybe I'll find it useful -- anything is possible!
I would strongly consider MacOS if I could run it on whetever machine I want. I would even pay for it.
Controversial Windows Recall AI Search Tool Returns with Proof-of-Presence
The last time I updated Windows 11 was to fix the IPV6 RCE vulnerability, but other than that I have updates blocked.
We are consumers, labeled and binned.
Our constitution might as well read: ‘We the Product…’.
Involved having to remove all kinds of system files and many registry keys, some that did not contain the email string at all, but encrypted versions of it (IdentityCRL)
This spyware is out of control. The worst part is they do all this and all their telemetry based products are still useless Clippy garbage that helps absolutely nobody do anything better or faster.
People don't use Windows over Linux because they prefer the Windows environment/experience. They use it because of the applications, and to some degree the drivers, that are not available in Linux.
But what I suspect: A much bigger cohort is people saying "I'm not forced, I just explicitly prefer it" although this is actually a lie. Some of them are aware of that, some not. Being forced to sth is not great. Not everyone is honest (or even aware) enough to admit it.
I use Linux every day, I love it, but it is a community project with rough edges and no customer service. Pretty small rough edges nowadays. But they are still there, and there’s no customer service.
Always happy to see people join Linux, but slightly confused at the folks advertising it. Are they implicitly signing up to be the customer service for these folks who are used to an OS-as-a-product type setup?
I mean first off, yes most people using Linux have no problem with helping people out, my guess is linux users are probably 100x more active on support platforms than anyone else. (if not more)
But also, who on earth has Microsoft customer service? Big businesses sure, but do you think most Windows users get customer support, big tech companies stopped connecting you to a human being like ten years ago. Everyone just googles when something breaks no matter the OS. I'm just so tired of the meme that there is any meaningful difference at this point. I've been using stock Ubuntu Desktop for 12(?) years, out of the box, no weird tinkering.
Do you know how often friends and family call me because something broke on their Windows machine and I'm the "tech guy"? This is the experience of every programmer I know. What difference does it make if they run Linux, yes stuff will break but we've been fixing stuff breaking anyway.
I see this sentiment a lot but the developer experience on Windows is good to great in my experience.
Much better than MacOS or linux if you are using Visual Studio and .NET, pretty equal if you are using another stack.
What it isn't is posix/unix. A lot of the bad developer experience people have on windows is from trying to (pre-WSL, at least) shoe horn unix tools and practices instead of doing things the windows way.
Writing Windows software, I’m sure, is easier on Windows.
Happily Valve fixed the whole gaming issue, outside of niche DRM stuff that I don’t care about.
This site shows how well games run on proton and people offer solutions to get them running if there's any snags.
Boy is it bad! Consumer versions of Windows are basically malware at this point. No idea how people can get stuff done at all.