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Microsoft Recall is now an explorer.exe dependency

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Re: Microsoft Recall is now an explorer.exe dependency

#91

Post by zamalek »

brink wrote: post #3

Does anyone know any good "debloat" scripts to disable all these modern features of Windows 11 and bring me back to something that resembles the Windows I grew up with? 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.

> disable all these modern features of Windows 11

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.

Re: Microsoft Recall is now an explorer.exe dependency

#92

Post by ryandrake »

delusional wrote: post #59
sunaookami wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not directed at you but I find it funny that people (rightfully!) complain about Microsoft spyware and then run some dubious scripts from who-knows-where. With the added side effects that these scripts always disable/remove waaaay too much and break the install which then lead to users cursing Microsoft for things that the user has broken without knowing.

I think it's a pretty damning condemnation of Microsoft's current product strategy, at least in relation to the user segment that visits hacker news. 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.

Microsoft's software is now indistinguishable from malware. If I had to run Windows, I would have zero trust in it, which matches my level of trust in "Fast Eddie's Random Script". At least Fast Eddie says in the README file that his script is not attacking my computer. Microsoft readily admits to its status as an attacker, and calls the attacks "features."

Re: Microsoft Recall is now an explorer.exe dependency

#93

Post by Randor »

jeroenhd wrote: post #84
Randor wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What Windows 7 telemetry are you referring to? Other than WER, there was no telemetry in Windows 7 to my knowledge. There was an update a few years ago that back ported telemetry to Windows 7 right before the final stage of extended support and final EOL.

Back when Microsoft started pushing telemetry in Windows 10, they added additional telemetry to Windows 7 through updates. Not nearly as pervasive and omnipresent as with Windows 11, though; you can just remove the telemetry updates: https://gist.github.com/xvitaly/eafa75ed2cb79b3bd4e9

Yes, it was me that backported some of that telemetry to both Windows 8.1 and Windows 7, circa 2015 when I was working on the WU team but we used WER to upload that to our endpoints. I don't think there was any telemetry at all before 2015 in the base operating system.

Re: Microsoft Recall is now an explorer.exe dependency

#94

Post by decremental »

wvenable wrote: post #82
sunaookami wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not directed at you but I find it funny that people (rightfully!) complain about Microsoft spyware and then run some dubious scripts from who-knows-where. With the added side effects that these scripts always disable/remove waaaay too much and break the install which then lead to users cursing Microsoft for things that the user has broken without knowing.

I find it funny that on website called hacker news, it's still assumed that anyone who customizes their system must also be an idiot that knows nothing about being safe online.

You'd think a bunch of javascript programmers I mean hackers would know better.

Re: Microsoft Recall is now an explorer.exe dependency

#95

Post by twojacobtwo »

sunaookami wrote: post #51
brink wrote: post #3

Does anyone know any good "debloat" scripts to disable all these modern features of Windows 11 and bring me back to something that resembles the Windows I grew up with? 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.

Not directed at you but I find it funny that people (rightfully!) complain about Microsoft spyware and then run some dubious scripts from who-knows-where. With the added side effects that these scripts always disable/remove waaaay too much and break the install which then lead to users cursing Microsoft for things that the user has broken without knowing.

I wouldn't say always. The last time I ran such a script, it didnt break anything. Granted, I did as the repo readme expressly and boldy stated, more than once, that 'anyone using this should read through the list of commands' (it was also nicely commented for lay people) and disable any sections related to services they use. Regardless, the defaults seemed quite sane and I even had to enable/uncomment a few for other services/products I didn't need.

Re: Microsoft Recall is now an explorer.exe dependency

#96

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

layer8 wrote: post #5

If this is a reliable way to revert Explorer back to the non-ribbon version, I hope they’ll keep this in.

> revert Explorer back to the non-ribbon version

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?

Re: Microsoft Recall is now an explorer.exe dependency

#97

Post by wilsonnb3 »

victor9000 wrote: post #50
giancarlostoro wrote: post #12

Every single day I am given more reasons never to use Windows again. Glad I moved to Linux early this year. My next desktop will likely be a System76 to ensure Microsoft doesn't get a cut from my next purchase, and it supports a business that supports Linux.

Having followed the same path, you won't regret it. I jumped ship 15 years ago after starting off my career as a C# dev and I never looked back. Linux makes it easy for you to be a developer, while other platforms fight you every step of the way. You'll eventually get into situations where you need to update something manually or rollback a dependecy, but it will be possible, and you'll find bug tickets describing th…

> Linux makes it easy for you to be a developer, while other platforms fight you every step of the way

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.

Re: Microsoft Recall is now an explorer.exe dependency

#98

Post by whatshisface »

kobalsky wrote: post #78
lostmsu wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It supposed to be local.

~~it's supposed to be optional.~~ it's supposed to be local. you can supposedly disable it. it's supposed not to send your information to the cops if it's sees you being naughty.

Or maybe,

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.

Re: Microsoft Recall is now an explorer.exe dependency

#99

Post by School-Cotton »

kobalsky wrote: post #78
lostmsu wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It supposed to be local.

~~it's supposed to be optional.~~ it's supposed to be local. you can supposedly disable it. it's supposed not to send your information to the cops if it's sees you being naughty.

There's another step:

"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?)

Re: Microsoft Recall is now an explorer.exe dependency

#100

Post by saboot »

hypeatei wrote: post #21

So glad I switched to Linux and got away from this garbage. Now I have to convince my employer to also allow Linux on their workstations. Windows 7 was the last good OS from MSFT but even that had a bit of telemetry.

I recently made the switch to linux full time as well. Even small things, like my computer taking three seconds from clicking Shutdown to turning off, is such a relief compared to Win11.
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