Most likely you've already heard about Recall, Microsoft's controversial Copilot+ feature that creates "timelines" with automatic screenshots on Windows 11. Last week, some users of version 24H2 discovered that Recall could be completely uninstalled, which seemed like good news on the surface. However, Redmond spokespeople confirmed that it's a bug, and that "it will be fixed" in a future update...
A quick visit to the Programs and Features section of the traditional Control Panel allows us to access the "Activate or deactivate Windows features" menu. There we can find items like .NET Framework, Hyper-V, Print to PDF, multimedia features (Windows Media Player, etc.), and the Windows Subsystem for Linux, among other things.
Last week (August 29, to be precise), the folks at Deskmodder discovered Recall within that section. Recall is the automatic "timeline" that Microsoft plans to offer on compatible Copilot+ devices. From the start, many experts have pointed out that Recall is a security nightmare, and Redmond was forced to delay its release. Making Recall an optional tool would be a big step in the right direction and would avoid a huge number of conflicts... but we're talking about Microsoft.
Recall: Deactivate? Yes. Uninstall? No.
The screenshot above, shared by The Verge, clearly identifies Recall, but Microsoft says it won't last long...
The Verge asked Microsoft about the presence of Recall in the "Activate or deactivate Windows features" menu and received a response from Brandon LeBlanc, "Senior Program Manager" on the Insider program team. Essentially, LeBlanc said that Recall appears there "incorrectly", and that the situation will be corrected "in the next update". In other words... it's a bug.
However, not all seems lost. Some sources suggest that the option in that menu is a beta test to enable the uninstallation of Recall on all European copies of Windows 11, similar to what already happens with Microsoft Edge. For Copilot+ devices in the rest of the world, the only option will be to deactivate Recall.
Source: The Verge
