Windows 11 enthusiasts are already playing with the new – and controversial – Recall feature the OS now has in preview (for 24H2), and have got it running on current Arm-based CPUs by fudging things.

While Recall is present in the recently released preview of the Windows 11 24H2 update, Microsoft makes it clear that the feature won’t work on current PCs, as it requires a Copilot+ PC (the new name for the ‘AI PC’).

In other words, Recall needs a device with a powerful enough NPU to run it (and other new AI features in 24H2), which is currently only the new Snapdragon X chips (and AMD plus Intel CPUs further down the line).

Even those Snapdragon laptops aren’t available just yet (they will be next month), but leaker Albacore has still managed to tinker under the hood of Windows 11 24H2 and get Recall working on a current Arm processor.

You can see a video of Recall being summoned on a standard (non-Copilot+) Windows 11 PC in the above post on X (formerly Twitter). As Albacore says, it shows ‘screenray’ in action which refers to the context-sensitive mode entered when you find something using Recall and select it.

As you can see, if the search result you want is a text file, screenray presents options pertaining to what you’ll need to do – copy and paste text. Or if it’s an image, you’ll get choices to copy the picture or open it for editing in an app.

Analysis: Working as not intended

It’s pretty cool to see this feature working on a processor without the necessary strength in terms of a powerful NPU (like the new Snapdragon X silicon sports), but at the same time, it illustrates why that NPU is needed. As you probably noticed, the interaction with Recall and screenray therein looks a bit laggy here – what the NPU does is provide specific AI acceleration to ensure this process runs more smoothly.

Furthermore, the feature is still in testing within a preview build here, and that won’t help either.

Albacore even sounds hopeful about getting Recall working not just on current ARM chips, but also on existing AMD and Intel (x86) CPUs, which also can’t officially run the feature. (Again, even current-gen processors from Teams Red and Blue lack an NPU with enough raw grunt).

If that happens, we can expect a similar experience to what we see here – but it’s not possible yet anyway, as Microsoft has only provided the machine learning model bundles for Arm to laptop makers. These don’t exist for AMD or Intel CPUs yet (as there’s no need for them – Lunar Lake and Strix Point, which will drive Copilot+ PCs, are still some way off launching, but they are fully expected to debut before 2024 is out).

Ultimately, this is an interesting fudge for now, but it’s likely a bad idea to be trying to get Recall up and running on a PC it’s not intended for. Simply because there may well be scenarios where it truly bogs down – such as when you have a larger, sprawling library of snapshots piled up – and there are doubtless good reasons why Microsoft has the mentioned NPU requirement in place.

Mind you, not everyone wants Recall, anyhow: certainly not those more privacy-conscious Windows 11 users out there who have already made their feelings clear. Indeed, a privacy watchdog in the UK is already investigating Recall before Microsoft even has the functionality officially live. The result of that enquiry will certainly be interesting, and Microsoft may be worried about another scenario where a big Windows 11 feature is blocked in Europe due to more stringent data regulations.

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We’re expecting the next major upgrade for Windows 11, the 24H2 update, to roll out widely in September or October of this year, and it’s possible that it could include Microsoft’s system optimizing app for Windows 11 (and Windows 10) called ‘PC Manager.’

The app was originally made for Windows 10 and Windows 11 users in China but has since spread to some other regions. Where it’s available, users can download PC Manager from the Microsoft Store if they want, but now it appears that Microsoft is going one step further by including the app in the 24H2 update.

At least Microsoft has introduced PC Manager in the latest Windows 11 preview build in the Beta channel, but only in China right now. This is quite a large step forward because it means the app is now one of the default inclusions in Windows 11 for Chinese users, as Neowin reports.

Logically, in the future, Microsoft may make PC Manager a default app in other regions, perhaps including the US. Indeed, the official page for the app in the US now allows Windows 11 and 10 users to download it - though of course, that’s a far cry from it becoming one of the stock apps in Microsoft’s operating systems.

Managing expectations

PC system optimizers have been around for a long time in the form of third-party apps, and it’s very interesting to see Microsoft offer up an official take on this kind of utility, built right into Windows, that many people think is pretty good.

The app promises to improve your system’s performance with typical actions like suggesting ways to free up memory and disk space, checking for potential threats to your PC like viruses or other issues, and reducing ads and pop-ups. The last aim is a little ironic seeing as a recent version of PC Manager was shown to suggest that users ‘fix’ their system by changing their default search engine to Bing. This hardly seems like a repair or a quality-of-life improvement, but just another shoehorned attempt at prompting users to switch to Microsoft products dressed up as a ‘suggestion.’ 

Neowin also tells us that in the past, PC Manager has been shown to inject affiliate links to products promoted by Microsoft, and recommend questionable actions in terms of optimizing your system. So, take that as something of a caution.

Conceptually, PC Manager sounds helpful or even necessary, offering assistance like quick system clean-up solutions, and protecting your default settings from unauthorized changes. In practice, it looks like Microsoft is experimenting with making some not-so-helpful (or even potentially harmful) additions.

I hope that Microsoft reconsiders this and puts the effort in to make it a great app, as that’s what’s best for Windows users and what will foster goodwill. It may also be the case that the changes made for China - including PC Manager becoming a default app in Windows 11 - may never be applied to the US market (or other regions).

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Windows 11 is getting a trick to help the best PC games run more smoothly, although this previously rumored feature comes with a catch – namely that it will only be available to those who have a Copilot+ PC with a Snapdragon X Elite processor.

The feature in question, which was leaked in preview builds of Windows 11 earlier this year, is called Auto Super Resolution (or Auto SR), and the idea is that it automatically upscales the resolution of a game (or indeed app) in real-time.

An upscaling feature like this effectively means the game – and it seems gaming is very much the focus (we’ll come back to that) – is run at a certain (lower) resolution, with the image upscaled to a higher resolution.

This means that something running at, say, 720p, can be upscaled to 1080p or Full HD resolution, and look nearly as good as native 1080p – but it can be rendered faster (because it’s really still 720p). If this sounds familiar, it’s because there are similar solutions already out there, such as Nvidia DLSS, AMD FSR, and Intel XeSS to name a few.

As outlined by Microsoft in its fresh details about Copilot+ PCs (highlighted by VideoCardz), the catch is that Auto SR is exclusive to these laptops. In fact, you need to be running the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite, so the lesser Plus version of this CPU is ruled out (for now anyway).

The other caveat to bear in mind here is that to begin with this is just for a “curated set of games,” so it’ll have a rather limited scope initially.

Analysis: The start of a long upscaling journey

When it was just a leak, there was some debate about whether Auto SR might be a feature for upscaling anything – games or apps – but Microsoft specifically talks about PC games here, and so that’s the intended use in the main. We also expected it to be some kind of all-encompassing tech in terms of game support, and that clearly isn’t the case.

Eventually, though, we’d think Auto SR will have a much broader rollout, and maybe that’ll happen before too long. After all, AI is being pushed heavily as helping gamers too – as a kind of gaming Copilot – so this is another string to that bow, and an important one we can imagine Microsoft working hard on.

Of course, the real fly in the ointment is the requirement for a Snapdragon X Elite chip, which rules out most PCs, of course. This is likely due to the demanding nature of the task, and the feature being built around the presence of a beefy NPU (Neural Processing Unit) to accelerate the AI workloads involved. Only Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X has a peppy enough NPU to deal with this, or that’s what we can assume – but this won’t be the case for long.

Newer laptop chips from Intel, such as Lunar Lake (and Arrow Lake), and AMD’s Strix Point are inbound for later this year, and will deliver the goods in terms of the NPU and qualifying as the engine for a Copilot+ PC – and therefore being able to run Auto SR.

Naturally, we still need to see how well Microsoft implements this feature, and how upscaling games leveraging a powerful NPU works out. But as mentioned, the company has so much riding on AI, and the gaming side of the equation appears to be important enough, that we’d expect Microsoft will be trying its best to impress.

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Microsoft’s announcements around Build 2024 have certainly grabbed some attention, but none more so on the controversy front than the AI-powered ‘Recall’ feature in Windows 11

Recall has been stirring up strong opinions left, right and center since its revelation, and now it appears to be under the microscope of the ICO, a UK-based privacy watchdog.

The worries expressed widely online are focused on how this feature may affect privacy for those who have it, which won’t be all Windows 11 users, we should note – just Copilot+ PC owners who have the necessary hardware goods in terms of a powerful NPU.

For those who missed it, what Recall does is record your PC usage, very literally in terms of taking screenshots of your active windows every couple of seconds. This then allow you to exercise powerful natural language-based search capabilities to rifle through your past PC usage, not just in terms of text but also visual search – with AI locating what you need by going through that huge library of screen grabs.

You can doubtless see the kind of privacy concerns that might be sparked by this constant stream of screenshots going on in the background, but the pushback and reaction has got serious very quickly.

Sky News spotted that in the UK, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), which oversees data privacy and related regulations, is already cautious about the Recall capability.

Indeed, following all the uproar around Recall, the ICO is investigating the feature, and told Sky: “We are making enquiries with Microsoft to understand the safeguards in place to protect user privacy.”

Safety first

It’s a good question, of course – so what safeguards are in place here to protect Windows 11 users?

For starters, Recall happens locally, so everything is stored on the PC, and nothing is sent online to the cloud or Microsoft’s servers – so there’s no risk of having data intercepted (or a third-party data breach leaking the private details of how you use your Windows 11 machine).

Microsoft has underlined that it doesn’t have access to any of this data, and it won’t be used to train its AI.

Furthermore, the company pointed out that you can manually delete snapshots, or adjust the timeframe they’re kept for – or pause, or turn off Recall entirely if you don’t want it. It’s also possible to block certain apps or websites from being used by Recall, so effectively there’s a lot of fine-grained control here.

However, will Windows 11 users be bothered to exercise that control and properly set up Recall? Well, that’s one worry, and another is that while it’s all well and good to say everything stays on the device, we have to firstly trust that’s the case – and it’s all watertight – and secondly, what if your PC is compromised by malware, or stolen. Then what?

Hackers or thieves could potentially have access to your Recall library of screenshots, which may contain confidential information, openly available to see, such as your bank or card details, or visible passwords, or, well, anything that has happened on your PC (that you haven’t marked out of bounds using Windows 11’s settings for Recall).

As Muhammad Yahya Patel, who is lead security engineer at Check Point, put it: “It is a one-shot attack for criminals, like a grab and go, but with Recall they will essentially have everything in a single location [your screenshot database] … Imagine the goldmine of information that will be stored on a machine, and what threat actors can do with it.”

More questions than answers?

So, there are definitely still some major concerns and question marks here, and it’s going to be pretty interesting to see what the ICO makes of Microsoft’s big AI play for Windows 11 to supercharge search.

We’ve already discussed other thorny areas around Recall – such as Windows 11 Home users apparently not benefiting from encryption for the data used by the feature, and what type of encryption is in place for Windows 11 Pro (or business) users anyway?

In that article, we also go over the precautions you can take to make Recall as secure as possible, but really, the best bet for the paranoid might be – simply turn it off and don’t use it. And maybe Microsoft wonders what all the fuss is about from naysayers, and why they don’t just take that approach.

But for the less tech-savvy, who might not even realize what Recall is, or that it’s turned on by default, it could be a risky feature – particularly considering these are the people who are most prone to getting hit by malware or hacked.

With that in mind, shouldn’t the first sensible security step be to have Recall off by default? So that it’s only turned on by those who know what it’s for, and want it? Let’s see what the ICO makes of Microsoft’s ‘default on’ approach, too.

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The Microsoft AI hype train is now well on its way and the next stop is Windows 11’s Photos and Paint apps getting another helping of AI integration. 

Microsoft is currently holding its Build 2024 conference, where the company has already introduced its line of new AI-focused Copilot+ PCs, including a feature called ‘Recall’ that records the activity on the PC and makes it searchable. Microsoft has also brought in an upgraded Cocreator feature for the Paint app.

Cocreator will run locally on Copilot+ PCs and make use of the more powerful NPUs (Neural Processing Units) on these devices to generate images based on text prompts that you provide. The current Paint app does have an AI-powered Image Creator feature, but it’s not the same as Cocreator. 

Cocreator is different because it will work locally on your computer and won’t need to go online to tap the computing power to generate images. Furthermore, it’ll produce images faster than Image Creator, although the latter isn’t being dropped - the two options will run side-by-side.

The new feature was demonstrated by Microsoft on a Surface Pro, showing the presenter putting in a prompt and drawing a basic outline of what they wanted the image to look like. Cocreator then used this information to generate the image based on the rough shapes that were drawn.

Cocreator is also shown to have a ‘Style’ dropdown menu, presumably to choose the style you’d like the image to be generated in, and a ‘Creativity’ slider.

Increasing that Creativity slider produces a higher quality image filled in with a greater level of detail, with the AI exercising its abilities more, whereas towards the lower end of the scale, the generated image sticks more closely to the rough sketch provided by the user.

The ability to experiment with styles in the Photos app

The Photos app in Windows 11 is also getting an AI boost on Copilot+ PCs in the form of a feature named ‘Restyle Image.’ This enables you to transform your own photos with preset artistic styles, for example taking a photo of your pet and making it an anime-style picture. 

There is a text box where you can enter prompts to give the feature your own specific instructions about what kind of style you’d like it to transform your photo into, and a ‘Creativity’ slider that apparently works similarly to the one in Cocreator. 

One interesting aspect that was picked up on by Windows Latest is that there doesn’t appear to be a fixed number of credits limiting the amount of times you’re able to use either feature. Both Cocreator and the ‘Restyle Image’ capabilities can be run as many times as you like locally on your PC using small language models. 

Both features will also require the PC to have a processor with a suitable NPU, so they won’t be available on all Windows PCs, including existing devices running Windows 11. This will be for laptops using the new Snapdragon X chip only, or other Copilot+ PCs with future AMD or Intel silicon.

For those keen on AI assistance, this is good news, as are the other AI tools Microsoft is introducing to Windows 11. It’ll make things that were unimaginable to most people not all that long ago easily accessible with a few clicks without even going online.

If you’re not a fan of AI-powered apps, then I can imagine this news will simply be a continuation of issues you may have with AI getting everywhere these days.

Either way, it doesn’t seem like Microsoft is going to be remotely discouraged from forging on this path, and it will continue to try and push to become the industry standard for AI-focused consumer products. 

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Microsoft’s annual developer conference, Build, has only just kicked off but we’ve already learned lots of exciting things, including the company showing off a new AI-powered ‘Recall’ feature to be integrated into Copilot+ PCs with Windows 11.

Copilot+ is a new software platform that was introduced yesterday, aiming to infuse Windows 11 with new AI features, ushering in a raft of new devices with more advanced AI functionality.

You’ve doubtless already heard of AI PCs, but the new breed of portables, which are powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X chips with an integrated Neural Processing Unit (NPU), were officially debuted yesterday. Windows 11 Recall will be exclusive to PCs that have Snapdragon X processors as the current generation of Intel and AMD mobile CPUs don’t have a powerful enough NPU to deal with the feature. (It needs an NPU capable of 40 TOPS, or trillions of operations per second). 

This isn’t the only hardware requirement that the Recall feature will necessitate, with the full spec requirements being as follows:

• Snapdragon X Elite or X Plus processor
• NPU capable of 40 TOPs
• 225GB storage
• 16GB RAM

While these new Qualcomm chips are the only mobile silicon that can drive the Recall feature (and other AI capabilities in Copilot+ PCs) right now, future generations of Intel and AMD processors will be on board (Intel’s Lunar Lake for example, or AMD’s Strix Point chips).

Windows Latest notes that the above hardware requirements are not only needed to ensure a quality experience - with enough performance to drive snappy responses with these AI features such as Recall - but also for data security reasons.

So, how does Recall work? 

In the past we’ve seen reports of a rumored feature, often referred to as ‘AI Explorer,’ that would enable you to search through your past activity on your PC. It looks like this has manifested as the Recall feature, and it’ll be privy to all the activity on your PC including what apps you use, how you use those apps, and what you do in them (for example, conversations in WhatsApp). Recall will record all of this activity going forward, saving snapshots of it in your PC’s local storage. 

Additionally, the Settings app will have a dedicated update history section for Recall, and a toggle for new Privacy and Security settings. You’ll be able to update Recall for Windows 11 and other AI features besides using the Windows Update app. 

If you’re feeling wary about allowing Recall to access everything, and concerned about having control over what it records and stores, Windows Latest reports that you’ll be able to delete snapshots manually from Recall’s storage, and set Recall to exclude certain apps and websites from its recording activity. In your device’s Settings, you’ll also be able to adjust the time ranges over which Recall stores snapshots, or indeed pause Recall altogether by clicking on its icon in your Taskbar. 

In practice, Recall is designed to help you go back in time and find elements of your past activity. So for example, if you previously had a conversation with a colleague on a certain topic, but couldn’t remember the details, you could ask Recall to go and find it within Windows 11.  Recall would then comb over your past conversations with the colleague, searching across all of your apps, open tabs within apps, and more besides.

Recall will also be able to help you find files you’ve lost, and to search your browser history, and so forth. You’ll be able to ask for Recall’s assistance using natural language, the way we converse with one another in real life, instead of having to use precise commands. 

All of this will run natively on your PC and won’t have to tap the cloud for computing power, meaning your data will be more secure, as everything can be kept locally, and nothing is sent to an external data center. It’s all happening right there on your Copilot+ PC with the help of that powerful NPU.

When can you try Recall for yourself? 

The hubbub and excitement of Recall is just one of many things that have been revealed at Microsoft Build 2024 already, but you’ll have to wait until the Windows 11 24H2 update to try the feature (and don’t forget, you’ll need a PC that meets the hardware requirements). The 24H2 update is expected to arrive in September or October, or thereabouts.

If Recall and other AI features, deliver on all that’s promised (or even most of it), we think many people will be impressed and it could convince them to try to adapt to the new way of computing that Microsoft is trying to usher in.

Right now, Copilot isn’t regarded as particularly impressive, but in some ways, that’s due to the hardware needed to facilitate Microsoft’s plans for its AI assistant not being available - until now. We’re excited to get our hands on all these new AI features, as we’re one of those people that floods our PC with media - and we’d imagine Recall could be very handy for us indeed.

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It looks like Windows 11 could get a new official default wallpaper, according to leaked images that have emerged just before Microsoft Build 2024, the company’s annual conference for developers - where it’s expected that we’ll see some big debuts showing off the fruits of collaboration between Microsoft, Qualcomm, and other partners. 

Microsoft has been pretty tight-lipped about what it plans to show off, and hasn’t even officially announced the new wallpaper, although it’s already available for download in high resolution. 

This was uncovered by German tech blog WinFuture, whose sources leaked information about Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge Pro laptops with ARM chips. The leak included multiple photographs of the laptop from a variety of angles, as well as the new wallpaper, which joins the series of Windows 11 signature Bloom wallpapers (Neowin has a collection of others you can view and download). Neowin speculates that the new AI-focused PCs will ship with the new background. 

Accompanying the leak, X user @cadenzza_ shared a high-resolution version of the brand new Bloom wallpaper variation (apparently shared in a private Windows Insider Telegram group originally) that you can download by saving the image below or from @cadenzza_’s post, and set on your device.

Microsoft's lips are sealed and it's got our attention

It’s interesting how closely Microsoft’s been guarding what it’s about to share, with this static wallpaper being one of the things that we can confirm at all. Neowin has proposed that Microsoft might be crafting new desktop background effects for Windows 11, perhaps making use of the next-generation devices’ AI capabilities, and creating effects simulating depth, and possibly making the background reactive to how you move your cursor. 

We’ll have to see if this is the case at some point in the next few days as Microsoft Build goes on. We expect the announcement of consumer versions of the Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 laptops with Qualcomm Snapdragon X processors, and whatever AI innovations Microsoft wants to bring to our attention. Another new hardware introduction we expect is a Copilot keyboard button, which has been discussed for a while now. Other Copilot-related news could have to do with OpenAI’s recent debut of GPT-4o, and possibly a souped-up Windows Copilot AI assistant.

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It looks like Microsoft is still making time to work on functional improvements to Windows 11, such as a recent update to File Explorer - and I’m not just talking about its enthusiasm for holistically peppering adverts all over the operating system and integrating AI into every part of it. The new development is looking to add a ‘Shared’ section into File Explorer and is currently being tested with Windows 11 beta users. 

The new File Explorer section is included as part of the Windows 11 Preview Build 22635.3640, available through the Beta Channel of the Windows Insider Program. Even if you install this preview build, the feature is disabled by default and has to be enabled using ViveTools, an open-source software that allows you to test out experimental features. 

The addition of this new section to File Explorer was discovered and shared by X user and occasional Windows leaker @PhantomOfEarth who described their experience of the upgrades that Microsoft is toying with introducing for File Explorer, including ‘fancy visuals’ for sections (even if they are empty) and the introduction of the ‘Shared’ section. 

The first of these discoveries indicates that Microsoft is currently testing changes to the File Explorer user interface (UI), specifically three sections appearing in a sort of horizontal ribbon layout below your file folders: ‘Recent,’ ‘Favorites,’ and ‘Shared.’ Formerly (well, currently, for those of us not using a preview build of Windows 11), these appeared in a vertical list below your file folders. 

How you can set up and try out the new 'Shared' section for yourself

If you’re absolutely itching to get the newly introduced ‘Shared’ section, as well as the changes to the UI, Windows Report recommends that you download ViveTool from its official GitHub page. You’ll have to install Windows 11 Preview Build 22635.3640 first, and then download ViveTool. ViveTool is a third-party app, but it’s widely used and I don’t see any immediate issues that strike me as cause for concern on its GitHub page. 

Once you’ve downloaded ViveTool, you’ll want to open Command Prompt or PowerShell, which are easiest to find by typing either one of those into the search bar in the Windows Taskbar. Then, copy and paste the following code into the window that opens: 

vivetool /enable /id:45130483

Again, this is a feature that’s currently in the testing stage; it’s not even enabled by default in the preview build, and this tracks with what users who have used it have been reporting - the new section appears to not be fully integrated into File Explorer yet and can be buggy at times. One user reported a bug that affected the whole of File Explorer, with the left-hand menu being automatically populated with copies of pinned shortcuts. 

The new section’s bugginess is probably why it’s currently disabled by default, and as Windows Report cautions, you should only enable it at your own risk. You can disable the new features and changes by modifying the ‘enable’ part of the above code to ‘disable,’ so you don’t have to panic even if you do choose to try this out and end up encountering some glitches. 

The new functionality for File Explorer seems useful, and I hope Microsoft continues to work on it to sharpen it and make it functional. It’s easy to see how a ‘Shared’ section would make it easier to collaborate with others your device is connected to. Also, these are the kinds of changes that I think users welcome, as they’re not too big, but have the potential to become part of how we use Windows in our regular routines.

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As Windows 11 users are becoming accustomed to more ads in key places of the operating system, Microsoft is seemingly experimenting with adding yet another advert covertly presented as a recommendation. This time the software giant is trying out having PC Manager suggest that you 'repair' your system by reverting to Microsoft's default search engine, Bing.

PC Manager is a Microsoft utility available in some regions that enables you to get a handle on system storage management and file management, and it can help optimize your PC's performance. Generally speaking, it's considered a pretty good app, but as with a lot of its products, that's not enough for Microsoft - it's also increasingly in the business of turning various products and features into ad vehicles (especially if they’re free!). 

Windows 11 has already seen ads introduced in parts of the interface like File Explorer, the Settings app, and, most recently, the Start menu. That roster is being expanded, as Windows Latest discovered, to include PC Manager, which recently got the addition of a 'Repair Tips' section and a Files Cleanup feature (which can detect duplicate files and more besides).

Looking for potential repairs? Microsoft has a suggestion

The advert was discovered when Windows Latest checked out the new 'Repair Tips' section of the PC Manager app, which suggested that the PC be 'repaired' by switching the default search engine back to Bing (which is the Windows pre-installed default) from Google Search (or whatever other browser is set as default). 

People who use Windows have picked up on Microsoft's persistence when it comes to ads, for example the 'promoted' third-party ads beginning to show up in the Start menu's 'Recommended' section. The suggestion that switching back to Bing is a ‘repair’ is a new low, though, as it’s effectively implying that using another search engine is actually a fault with your PC, in a way. Switching to Bing search is not going to improve your PC’s performance, is it? Hardly.

As Windows Latest reports, the PC Manager app was developed by Microsoft engineers in China, and it’s possible that the company may drop odd manner to push Bing if the software is rolled out more broadly elsewhere - it may come to the US eventually.

Letting Edge, Bing, and PC Manager stand on their own merits

From what we've seen so far, aside from this advertising push that's been witnessed across Windows 11 more broadly, PC Manager looks like a good app to help you better manage your PC's resources and files, and Windows Latest recommends it as a seemingly secure performance-boosting app. This makes sense as it's developed by Microsoft itself, which has an interest in ensuring that its apps are as secure as they can be. 

Microsoft Edge, the default browser pre-installed on Windows machines, and Bing Search aren't bad products by any means - they are solid alternatives to Google's own Chrome and Search. Edge has recently seen a whole host of new useful features like a sidebar, sleeping tabs, and an immersive reader. That said, there are parts of the browser that some people consider 'bloatware' and unnecessary clutter. For example, some folks don't currently see much purpose in using Microsoft's AI assistant, Copilot, which is integrated into Edge. 

Bing Search and Edge have enough of their own merits to be considered viable alternatives to the industry leaders, and I know personally that this kind of repeated prodding doesn't convince me to try them. If anything, it can push people away, and tech companies would do well to remember that what wins people's minds are products that work well. It’s as simple as that - let the product speak for itself, and the user base will grow.

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Happy Microsoft Patch Tuesday May 2024 to all who celebrate! Yesterday saw a new update for Windows 11 that brings fixes for existing issues, along with other changes, as part of Microsoft’s monthly patch cycle. Version KB5037771 is now available to Windows 11 users, and it brings some notable developments like new Start menu features and a fix for a previously reported VPN-related issue. 

To get the new update, check your Windows Update app. Your system might have already downloaded the update and prepared it for installation, but if not, click on ‘Check for Updates.’ Note that this is a mandatory update that Microsoft would strongly urge you to install for security reasons, and it’s available for Windows 11 23H2 and 22H2 users.

'Ad' in 'Recommended' clothing finally arrives in Start menu

One of the changes that update KB5037771 delivers is adverts embedded in the Start menu, as previously witnessed in preview builds (including last month’s optional update for Windows 11). The ads are presented as recommendations, highlighting certain apps from the Microsoft Store from a group of selected developers. 

Explaining the rationale behind this move, Microsoft says it’s intended to help users discover apps that they might find useful or entertaining that they may not be aware of. If you don’t find a particular ad (sorry, ‘recommendation’) helpful, Windows Latest observes that you can dismiss it by right-clicking on it. 

You can go further and block these ads for recommended third-party apps in your Start menu by going to the following location: 

 Settings > Personalization > Start

Here, you can switch off the toggle next to the ‘Show recommendations for tips, app promotions, and more’ option, and this will prevent these promotions or recommendations, or whatever you want to call them (adverts, ahem), from appearing.

Further note that in the Recommended section of the Start menu, Microsoft has also started showing apps that you use frequently but don’t have pinned in your Start menu or taskbar.

These changes to the Start menu are due to begin rolling out to users in the coming weeks, but some people might not be shown the ads depending on the region they’re in, Windows Latest reports - noting that those in Europe may not get the adverts (lucky them).

A long-awaited fix for some VPN users

The update also incorporates a fix for a problem that caused VPN connection failures, which were seemingly a side-effect of the April 2024 cumulative update. Some users reported issues with certain VPN connections, and Microsoft has since acknowledged the problems and added that they should be resolved after this new May 2024 update.

Other changes that KB5037771 brings include upgraded MSN cards on your lock screen and new widget animations.

It feels like a broken record at this point, writing about Microsoft pushing forward with this advertising strategy in Windows 11. Is there any chance the software giant will rethink this policy? It doesn’t seem likely, and if anything, I can see Microsoft continuing to integrate ads into more and more places in Windows 11.

Okay, so in this case, the adverts can be turned off, which is at least something - but I fear that Microsoft is going to continue in this direction, unless it starts getting a lot of negative feedback.

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Windows 10’s days are numbered – well, we know that, as support runs out next year (with some potentially nasty consequences) – but it seems AMD is underlining that with its incoming Strix Point APUs, at least if a fresh rumor is right.

If a well-connected person posting on Weibo is correct – this is seemingly Lenovo’s China manager, as TechSpot reports – then the release of Zen 5-based Strix Point chips will witness Team Red drop support for Windows 10 drivers.

That means these incoming APUs – a fancy term for all-in-one processors, with integrated graphics and an NPU bundled up together – will only be good for Windows 11 PCs.

The manager also estimates that the IPC (Instructions per Clock) increase for Zen 5 CPUs will be around 10%, which is notably lower than some other estimates we’ve seen thus far (which are more in the 15% to 20% area, or even slightly higher).

Naturally, as this is a rumor from Weibo – not our most favored source for speculation – heap on the seasoning with this one.

Analysis: It’s all about AI

Windows 10 is, of course, still a lot more popular than Windows 11. Indeed, Microsoft’s newer OS has struggled to attract users since it was first released, and still Windows 11 only has 26% of Windows market share going by the latest statistics from Statcounter – with Windows 10 maintaining the lion’s share.

Even in gaming, Windows 11 might be doing much better than with everyday users, but it’s still behind Windows 10 (albeit the newer platform is closing on 50% finally, according to the latest Steam hardware survey).

So why would AMD look to abandon Windows 10 early – if, indeed, this is happening? Well, for starters, Windows 10 is on its way out of the door next year, as we already noted (support ends in October 2025).

Also, as TechSpot observes, Strix Point chips are at least partly about pushing hard with AI – and getting close to 80 TOPS (trillions of operations per second). And when it comes to AI, Windows 11 is very much where it’s at – the revolutionary piece of Microsoft’s puzzle, purportedly ‘AI Explorer,’ will be introduced with the 24H2 update, and this will need those faster chips capable of pushing further with TOPS to make AI functionality run swiftly enough.

In short, we need to remember that Strix Point will be powering AI PCs and new devices that’ll have Windows 11 anyway.

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Microsoft looks like it’s forging ahead with its mission to put more ads in parts of the Windows 11 interface, with the latest move being an advert introduced to the Settings home page.

Windows Latest noticed the ad, which is for the Xbox Game Pass, is part of the latest preview release of the OS in the Dev channel (build 26120). For the uninitiated, the Game Pass is Microsoft’s subscription service that grants you access to a host of games for a monthly or yearly subscription fee.

Not every tester will see this advert, though, at least for now, as it’s only rolling out to those who have chosen the option to ‘Get the latest updates as soon as they're available’ (and that’s true of the other features delivered by this preview build). Also, the ad only appears for those signed into a Microsoft account.

Furthermore, Microsoft explains in a blog post introducing the build that the advert for the Xbox Game Pass will only appear to Windows 11 users who “actively play games” on their PC. The other changes provided by this fresh preview release are useful, too, including fixes for multiple known issues, some of which are related to performance hiccups with the Settings app. 

Pushing too far is a definite risk for Microsoft

While I can see this fresh advertising push won’t play well with Windows 11 users, Windows Latest did try the new update and reports that it’s a significant improvement on the previous version of 24H2. So that’s good news at least, and the tech site further observes that there’s a solution for an installation failure bug in here (stop code error ‘0x8007371B’ apparently).

Windows 11 24H2 is yet to roll out officially for all users, but it’s expected to be the pre-installed operating system on the new Snapdragon X Elite PCs that are scheduled to be shipped in June 2024. A rollout to all users on existing Windows 11 devices will happen several months later, perhaps in September or October. 

I’m not the biggest fan of Microsoft’s strategy regarding promoting its own services - and indeed outright ads as is the case here - or the firm’s efforts to push people to upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11. Unfortunately, come next year, Windows 10 users will be facing a choice of migrating to Windows 11, or losing out on security updates when support expires for the older OS (in October 2025). That is, if they can upgrade at all - Windows 11’s hardware requirements make this a difficult task for some older PCs.

I hope for my sake personally, and for all Windows 11 users, that Microsoft considers showing that it values us all by not subjecting us to more and more adverts creeping into different parts of the operating system.

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