The Elephant In The Room: Recall
As it turns out, Recall seems to need machines that have been specifically built to be able to use Recall. Mine aren’t, so it appears it is disabled. Sounds good to me, but there is no telling if/when Microsoft may decide this gets turned on for all devices. I just don’t want this on any of my systems.
Verdict
Ultimately, I’m mostly happy with this upgrade. I’ve not looked into just how much is being sent to Microsoft, and what they are finding out about you, so I can’t comment on that side of things (I have read that local accounts spy far less than Microsoft’s online accounts – but I can’t vouch for that). I’ll also be looking to erase all mentions on Copilot from my devices. I’m not a fan of ‘AI’ and I do worry what it could do to humans, in terms of intelligence, incorrect information, and yes, large scale unemployment. But that’s a topic for another day. Bar the start menu choices, I feel the updated UI is a huge improvement over 10 with the overhauled settings area being a massively welcome change. So yes. In my view, get upgrading.
Over time though, I noticed Windows may break on a whim. The amount of updates I noticed happening, seemingly almost daily, will fix something but break something else. Not a good experience for a user.
Fact of the matter is though, is that I am using Linux for many daily tasks, and I recommend moving if you are up to it. I wish Ableton was available on Linux but there is always dual booting – but it does mean I’m stuck with Windows, in some form, for the near future.