The Windows 11 Apocalypse thread

[Skybird]

In this thread I will occasionally unsystematically post info and videos on the unfolding security and privacy desaster that Windows 11 is. Some poeple may not be aware of things like Copilot and Recall, and why they are so totally unacceptable. With Windows 10's days counted at least regarding updates, some people sooner rather than later will consider to go Windows 11, others may buy a new machine and get it as a free toxic preinstalled suicide bonus.

Myself, I was stunned with disbelief when I learned the first horrifying details about Windows 11's safety and privacy meltdown. I have buried all plans to ever buy a new machine for Windows use again, which will dramatically chnage and in parts delete my ability to play the sims I like, namely racing sims, flight sims and PC-based VR. I will get a new gaming rig once the need is there, but tailored to the needs of gaming under Linux, because Windows 11 is totally and completely unacceptable to me even if here in the EU certain legislation may and already have been released forcing Microsoft to compromise some of its totalitarian wet dreams. But who said they comply? There are already reports on that they lie and do not comply at all, but hollow out the new rules released in August this year.

With Recall at the latest Microsoft has overstepped the last thin red line for me, I am fed up with Microsoft. It led to the number of Windows 11 users declining over this year (!!) by either going back to Windows 10 - or migrating to Linux or Apple. Windows 11 and Recall is a great marketing strategy of Microsoft to push people over to Linux, the move is already happening.

I can only warn everybody to embark on Windows 11 or to carelessly accept Recall. And that you should not trust the cheating words and candy-glossed lies of Microsoft you should know yourself by now.

"Personal" Computers are dead. Windows is dead. That simple it is.

If you hear of this for the first time: Recall is a default-activated and mandatory "service" that creates screenshots of your screen every 5 seconds and stores these on your HD, exposing them to criminal hackers who attack your machine as well as allows remote-analysis by Microsoft' well-meaning AI tools. It snot just screenshots being stored, but the content of these screenshots in image and text and formula gets analysed by AI - and extracted, if MS sees an interest to do so, obviously. PIN numbers and sensitive data and texts you enter get analysed. Intimate communications you trade with a partner get analysed. Confidential customer or patient files get analysed. Data you may need to keep confidential for legal reasons if you are a lawyer or doctor etc will get analysed.

Its the total transparency and surveillance of yourself. And its mixed into the code of file explorer, you cannot delete the code of Recall and being done with it, they force you to accept its presence by trying to make it undeletable. You cannnot easily find it insettings of Windows (in the EU they need to make it "deactivatable" and they must offer it as an opt-in, not opt-out like in other parts of the world. But do you trust Microsoft that they do not secretly - or accidentally, "oooops, we apologize for our mishap" - activate it again? Or hammer the activation button secretely with every update they install?

You cannot trust Microsoft. They want total control over all data on your computer, that is their goal, you should not have any illusions there.

Go Linux. Serious. Because now the situation really becomes threatening. For your safety. For your privacy,. For your legal situation. You can violate privacy laws and rules of confidentiality if you work in certain professions and use this OS.

Gaming is said to have become quite good under Linux, with things like Proton Steam. I will investigate that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW6b4ObnYMY

[Skybird]

IMHO Recall is like a ticking time bomb for everybody using a system with it enabled, may it be his own devicem, or a public one, or his serviceman's device, it does not matter.

And Microsoft's claims and words and promises mean nothing.

Windows 10 was once marketed by the claim that it would be the last operaiton sysstem of that name. Well, for me that is true.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmZtB18qR6I


And this guy has drawn the consequences. He says his gaming has often become better under Linux than under Windows.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1BKn02f_0o

[mapuc]

Do remember that 95-98 % of us computer user isn't exactly what you would call a computer nerd and can do nothing than embrace the new operative system Win11.

I'm going to stick with my Win10 as long as I can.

Markus

[Jimbuna]

Avoid Win11 like the plague for as long as possible.

[Aktungbby]

Do remember that 95-98 % of us computer user isn't exactly what you would call a computer nerd and can do nothing than embrace the new operative system Win11.

I'm going to stick with my Win10 as long as I can.

Markus

Avoid Win11 like the plague for as long as possible....as do I; I'm constantly decling sudden screen requests to upgrade to WIN 11 from my current WIN 10...a miserable form of nagging elder abuse to a computer illiterate as myself IMHO. I gresatly mourn the loss of my WIN 7 which had all my favorite games, particularly SH-5.:wah:

[Commander Wallace]

...as do I; I'm constantly decling sudden screen requests to upgrade to WIN 11 from my current WIN 10...a miserable form of nagging elder abuse to a computer illiterate as myself IMHO. I gresatly mourn the loss of my WIN 7 which had all my favorite games, particularly SH-5.:wah:


I have Windows 10 for business correspondences as it was essentially forced on me at work. I absolutely refuse to " upgrade " to Windows 11. My Silent Hunter 3 frequently crashes on Windows 10 units. I still have Windows 7 units with which to play Silent Hunter 3 and other applications. Luckily or unluckily, I never have time to play them anyhow. Maybe with Winter Weather fast approaching.....

I think it's time to for me revisit Linux and it's derivatives, like Ubunto Operating Systems. Maybe Microsoft and other manufacturers like HP will finally get the message but I seriously doubt it.

[Dargo]

Ahum why not use Linux (Ubuntu, Debian, Linux Mint, etc) it has all the tools Window also can run window games or programmes (Wine).

[Skybird]

Linux Mint Cinnamon/MATE/Xfce new LTS version 22 just out. https://linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/choose.html

Steam Proton, since 2018. https://www.protondb.com/
Proton is a new tool released by Valve Software that has been integrated with Steam Play to make playing Windows games on Linux as simple as hitting the Play button within Steam. Underneath the hood, Proton comprises other popular tools like Wine and DXVK among others that a gamer would otherwise have to install and maintain themselves. This greatly eases the burden for users to switch to Linux without having to learn the underlying systems or losing access to a large part of their library of games. Proton is still in its infancy so support is inconsistent, but regularly improving. I still had not gotten up my lower bottom to check both out, but these are the way to go, I have my homework laid out before me.

Problems with Linux might more focus on hardware compatabilties. I forsee issues with VR, and my racing wheels. Thank God I have migrated a lot to Quest 3.

The games being able to run under Proton on Linux are now in the five digit range. Including PC Linux, Steam Deck, Chromebooks. I checked a random colleciton of my favourites, and found them all rated as "works out of the box" or "works after a few tweaks. With MS-FS and my racing sims however it is a bit different. Steal Beasts Pro also is a no go.



Oh wait... https://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/17459-steel-beasts-works-on-linux-wine/


-------

[mapuc]

Have no clue about this Linux operating system-So I just do as said before-Keep my Win10 as long as possible.
(To be honest I'm scared, that I would do more damage to my computers softwares and perhaps hardwares)

Markus

[Catfish]

Windows 10 already sends home all kinds of info and data about you, you cannot switch that off –

Also on android or apple mobiles the option to switch off visited web history and data does not mean it is not stored and sent – you are just not shown it anymore.

Linux is it. But .. games. I doubt wine will have the game performance of a native Windows system? :hmmm:

[Dargo]

Have no clue about this Linux operating system-So I just do as said before-Keep my Win10 as long as possible.
(To be honest I'm scared, that I would do more damage to my computers softwares and perhaps hardwares)

MarkusLinux is a Unix-like operating system Unix a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research centre. Linux is developed by Linus Torvalds in the 1990s and continues to be developed by the Linux community of developers. Linux is safer than windows, it does not damage the computer. The internet runs on Linux systems MacOS is comparable to Linux in structure because both are based on the Unix operating system. But unlike Linux, macOS is not open-source, and its source code is not made available to the public. If you have an old laptop, PC, try it, it is not that different as Windows.

[Skybird]

Have no clue about this Linux operating system-So I just do as said before-Keep my Win10 as long as possible.
(To be honest I'm scared, that I would do more damage to my computers softwares and perhaps hardwares)

Markus
Linux Mint Cinnamon is designed to make the migration very easy especially for former windows users, it reminds of it and is designed with Windows users in mind, the ways of handling they are used to.

It gets installed by downloading an ISO file and put it onto a bootable USB stick, for exmaple. And then you boot in Linux from that stick (or disc, you may need to reset your BIOS so that the medium you use is first in the booting sequence). What you then have is your computer booting this time - in Linux. A fully working Linux.

Which is temporary only of course. If you unplug the stick and boot new, the normal Windows boot will take place.

This is great to do for two reasons:

1. you can check out Linux, go into its functions, see how it looks, what it offers, you can thoroughly check it out without compromising your existing Windows installation. You can see how driver support is, whether your attached hardware would work. And so forth. Simply: thoroughly check it out. Get a taste. A first rendezvous to find out whether you could imagine to meet the other again.

2. if you want to fully adapt to it and install it, you simply hit a button in the above temporary installation, and then it gets written to your HD and becomes your lasting standard-installed OS. Thats how it gets installed. Pressing a button in the temporary installation from a disc or stick.

It comes with a full and complete set of free software, for example Open Office (full), Gimp graphics editor, Firebird, Thunderbird (I think), media players, and more. Its however many new names and tiltes of tools, you must check out what tool does what.

The temporary installation by booting with an external medium is a very good and simple way to meet Linux, and if your copy working files on external media, you can even fully work from here. On any PC and laptop, that is.

You could also consider to install a dual boot, I used that in 2016 and 2017. When you then switch on your computer, it will ask you to select whether to boot in Windows or Linux, you press 1 or 2, and then it is business as usual from there on. The negative thing is you could not run both installations at the same time, if that may be opportune. Also, installing a dual boot is a bit more comp0licated. But I did it 2015 or 2016, so it can be done even by apes like me, and it works.

Before installing in full, i would nevertheless recommend to search and read an little video or text instruction for it all, or have a simple beginners book for Mint 22 and go over it. If Linux is your first time, then some reading first indeed helps. Last but not least it reduces your prejudices you maybe have and your fears and worries, and gives you confidence in what you are doing. You must not fear that you would need to learn text editor commands like with MSDOS 30, 35 years ago. That interface is also still there, and the nerds pray to it, but Mint Cinnamon is designed to make it even more unneeded than it already was in the last Mint version I freshly installed, which was 20.3 .

I do not consider myself a Linux expert, I am still a noob in it and do not care to learn more about it, nevertheless I deal with it now since almost 7 years. Like I press a button in a lift without studying engineering to understand how lifts are constructed. Mint has nicely matured over the years, and it does everything that Windows does, just in practically all cases: faster and better. The only issue with it is compatability with Windows software, and sometimes drivers, namely for printers and exotic gaming hardware. But even these issues got healed over time. Most hardware producers refuse to released dedicated Linux drivers, so the community then has to code them, you often find open source drivers, but they may need some time to get delivered when some new printer came out that does not get supported natively in Linux. For printers it does not hurt to have an Epson, Epson is one of the two printer manufacturers who sometimes do Linux drivers, often actually, the other was I think Brother, I'm not sure. For other brands however there is an open source library for drivers.

Make a bootable USB stick with Linux Mint Cinnamon on it, and then have a look yourself. No risk, no costs, and even much less work than you maybe think. Youtube has many guides, so have according forums.


P.S.
If oyu ahve a very old laptop, you coudl install a less hardware demanding version of Linux. Mint Cinnamon is all Wndows bells and whistkes, and works nice, and I alos had it on a laptop more than 15 years old, however. If using an old laptop you must however chekcd whetehr you ned a 32 or 64 bit Linux. More recent Linux distributions are all 64 bit only.

[Skybird]

There are Windows emulators like Wine under Linux, allowing you to run Windows software under Linux. However, if you are about security, this must be handled wiht care, becasue your drive cna get infested with Windows malware this way, if you access the web or transfer windows files from disc, web or stick, because these files then may be Windows fomratted, but nevertheless rest on your hard drive, and for nhere cna spread even if your Linux insbtallation may not feel infested and is not further affected. The data file stays corrupted. So, such emulators are an entrance gate for Windows malware being copied to a Linux installation. Thats what makes Proton by Valve/Steam so attractive, it has several such emulators under its hood, but I would suspect Steam takes good care about their safety. Proton means, if I got it right, that you install it from steam, and then launch compatible Windows game via Proton, much the same way you launched them from your Steam account under Windows. And thats all. Hey it s Valve/Steam havign debekloped this to make Window sgames playable unde rLnux, and I see how great their Steamlink to Quest 3 works, too: Meta now officially recommends the use of SteamLink over Meta's own Airlink, that much better than Meta's native solution it is!

[mapuc]

I wrote this in the search field "Is windows 11 as bad as they say"

The first suggestion was this article:

https://uk.pcmag.com/migrated-3765-windows-10/137593/the-10-worst-things-about-windows-11

Markus

[Skybird]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTLkejC4PbI

[Skybird]

https://youtu.be/UKq_blvKCPc?si=pfJM85aV9q7WEjnW

[Eichhörnchen]

If you hear of this for the first time: Recall is a default-activated and mandatory "service" that creates screenshots of your screen every 5 seconds and stores these on your HD, exposing them to criminal hackers who attack your machine as well as allows remote-analysis by Microsoft' well-meaning AI tools

Surely all you need to do - if you've somehow mistakenly downloaded Recall - is delete the folder it created to store all your stuff?

[Skybird]

See the video one post before yours, Eichhörnchen. What there is said about the role of AI in smartphones surveilling your deeds, habits, choices and verbal messages, is also true for the Recall data treasure chest on your HD - or do you really want to rely on Microsoft's sugarcode-wordings that they will not access that data? :stare: Das will ich doch nicht hoffen...! The screen content of every five seconds screenshots is being stored in a format that AI can analyse. And that is the real purpose behind it.


Also, a hacker getting this database of encoded screenshots, knows everything you entered on your PC that way. Sensitive data. Porn pics. Maybe PIN numbers. Customer data if its a business machine. Business plans. Hidden chats with your hidden girlfriend your wife does not know of.

Microsoft hides accessability to Recall options to switch it off. In the EU Recall must be an opt-in option, outside the EU they just have switched it to "mandatory", it is on by default and hard to switch off. They do that on purpose, and its not that easy at all to deactivate it, and even if the screen tick box said it is off now - how do you now that it is off indeed...? Its just a graphics you get displayed, it says "off". Pixels on a screen. Windows notoriously telephones home. Why is that?

Why is it that on my Windows 10 machine the telemetry "service" is practically impossible to switch off in the meaning of it not being activated automatically when booting? And while MS says it only collects data on my hardware setup and components why must it then scan and run my HD and SSD 20-30 m minutes every time I boot - it surely is just a thing of seconds to scan all technical compenents of my system and driver versions and put these data up in a simple file...?

(I made it a rule to go inbto Taks Msanager every time I boot and tnhere deaciutvate Telemtry Service manually, after every booting. I trtied all registry hacks that there on the web tio get rid of telemetry, and ran all tips and recipes - none of these work, that thing is what MS wants active, and they made sure you cannot switch it off. - WHY...? When it is only about collecting data on your hardware setup? And why must you telephone home these simple informaitons every time you boot? And why must all your HD and SSD apparently completely get scanned for that, 20-30 minutes long...???)

Dont be naive. >>> Do. Not. Trust. <<< When it comes to Microsoft, Google, and Apple, always assume the worst. Betting on it will make you a rich man. Privacy is against their business interests. And against government interests.

That video is about smartphones, and yet I put that in here - for a purpose.

Windows 11 is a privacy and security nightmare. Worse than anything I just years ago could imagine. An no, Apple OS and Google are NOT any better.

Some now want to add AI modules even into Linux. These idiots must have lost their senses. Its like starting a vaccination campaign against health.

[Skybird]

https://youtu.be/PnG66fHKRw0?si=rezltwMA_awZMhIg

[Skybird]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh1pF1zaauc



https://www.youtube.com/@robbraxmantech/videos

[Catfish]

And we can thank Apple, Microsoft, Zuckerberg and Musk for this.
:Kaleun_Applaud:

[Skybird]

And Bezos. And China. And ourselves. By our consumer and political election decisions we let them go ahead with this.

Die dümmsten Kälber wählen sich ihre Metzger selber.

Edit: the guy is good, he knows his stuff and his explanations and videos show that he has really seen through it in depth. I can only recommend many of his videos. We currently give up, voluntarily, our freedom and independence. We must have completely lost all our marbles.

Butler, come soon and start your djihad...

[Catfish]

Butler, come soon and start your djihad...
.. yes only we have to do it ourselves :hmmm:

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/23/tech/elon-musk-trump-ai-sam-altman/index.html

Also Musk is not against AI, not at all. He is against OPEN AI, the one that is free :03:

edit:
"The Biden administration’s prospective “AI Bill of Rights,” for instance, seeks to regulate AI with an eye to protecting individual rights and civil liberties. For all its ambition, such a framework fails to reckon with the threat of mass economic displacement—and resulting social disruption—posed by AI."
The page has been put off the net right after Trump's inauguration lol
https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/ai-bill-of-rights/?ref=compactmag.com


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8gvQLt4k2U

[Buddahaid]

Just bought a new PC from a boutique shop with Windows 11. Boutique shop because they don’t install bloatware nor do they activate onedrive and because software I use almost daily will not run on Windows 10 January 2026. Also buying before the idiotic tariff wars double the price.

[Catfish]

After some resistance Microsoft has now abandoned its Win 11 recall 'feature'. Though it was not intended to spy on users it could have certainly been used like that.
Original intent was to easily find earlier files, websites and own action that may have been forgotten.
Officially..

[Skybird]

Where have you that ^ from, Catfish?

Last year the eU demanded from MS that Recall must be made an installabe item of choice by the user, and that it must be an active opt-in, not opt-out, by the user. That was around April last year.

Microsoft reacted by delaying the rollout of Recall in Europe by a few months, then presented a new code for the whole W11 OS where Recall then was integral part of the file explorer, which before it was not. This new architecture then was their foul excuse to argue that they cannot make Recall a choice by the user since without Recall the file explorer would not work and hence the whole OS would not work. Quite underhanded move by them.

They then claimed that it cna be switche don or off and that would be an opt-in decision during installation or first launch of a new rig with preinstalled W11. That was a lie, too. Tech bloggers time and again - you can check yourself on youtube - have tested it, there is a way how users can check the working state of Recall via command line interface (!!), in other words Microsoft did its best to make Recall verification as difficult as possible and they hid Recall alltogether from the user. And - wonder oh wonder - these tests always showed that Recall is on all new installations - ACTIVE. The tecnically unknowing user who just uses his system for playing or business or home computing has zero chance to ever get aware of the issue - or its dangerous implications.

Dont be surpised that Microsoft is lying.

Recall is essential for them, and not that harmless as you think , Kai. Its a fundament of their long term business strategy and vision of creating a digital full world replicate of each and everything that feeds not several external, separated AIs , but just one single AI. Their top CEO has put it in very open words, that leave no space for interpretations. If they do not harvest all and every event and piece of data fro everywhere, all the time, always, they cannot do this.

Its madness, yes. Its dangerous to the max. Its hubris.


Digital assistants and now the general spreading of AI also serve this purpose.

You are free to believe their claims, of course. But I would call doing so naive.

https://www.youtube.com/@robbraxmantech/videos

Also note that they have changed anotherthing, against the user's interest, as so often. With having a Microsoft account being mandatory now to run W11 and with being online all the time being mandatory as well, also being engaged with Microsoft cloud service and all the abonements needed in a professional environment, Microsoft has now deleted the option to log out of any of these service - even if you are on a public on a foreign machine. In other words, no matter from which place and machine you access your account(s) and data, you will stay endlessly logged in on that machine, leaving you vulnerable to every other foreign user on that machine using your account and accessing your data. You cannot log out of your accounts from that machine. Think of that! And make sure you think deep and well.

My neck hair raises at the outlook of spending thousands of coins on a new machine that ist completely owned by Microsoft and is their licensed property and that spies on my all day long, in 5 second intervals, and phones home to mother and tells her what it has seen me doing on screen, , and where MS and hardware manufacturers conspire and implement hardware features that increasingly are meant to prevent using another OS on this hardware than W11, or using W11 without completely exposing yourself to the total surveilance regime of Microsoft. Its not your machine. And if you let this foreign sniffer tool in, its no longer your life. Tjhat is no exaggeration.

For MS, all depends on enforcing access to your most private of your private life. Its their future. And you can bet they will not let you off the hook, nor will they ever fully comply with EU regulations hindering them.

In other words, they have declared full unlimited war on the user, private or business, and they will accept nothing but your unconditional surrender. That they will sugarcoat all this, does not change anything.

Amongst our owners' group in the house I live inm there is one pensioneered former judge, and one still active business and company lawyer. Both say the situatioon with Recall must be of even legal concern for businesses and lawyers, because W11 violates the right to confidentiality between professional and client and the sensitive data that is exchanged between them and is subject to the duty of confidentiality is exposed to access by Microsoft, and gets collected by routine by Microsoft. This even makes a lawyer, journalist or doctor legally liable to prosecution. The lawyer has therefore changed the system in his law firm and thrown out everything from Microsoft. He is currently on Linux, but is not happy with it and wants to switch to Apple. That governments and the EU do niot bite harder against Microsoft is becasue a.) government agencies cna get sopecial verisons that have indeed no survuellance and sniffing software on board, b) business and public amdinstraiton have made themnslkeves absokutely depending on Microsoft compatability software, and c.) the EU wants total surveillance of citizens, too, like China.

Do watch the linked videos in my posts #16 and #19.

And since you plan to go W11, Kai: be mindful about drive encryption which also is mandatory now. If you lose the key, your data is lost.

Edit:
just one or two weeks ago, there was another nice move by MS. Their recent bigge ruodate was a amsscare for many user'S machines, it apparently was extrenely buggy and caused a lot of problems and showstoppers. Micorosft reaction was typicval MS: they stopped the option to delay updates, and enforced this known broken, crippling faulty updates on everybody, from just a few days later on: unreoaure,d unfixed, broken as it is.

[Skybird]

Surprisingly, he rates Apple the worst.

But be reminded that VPNs do not work trustworthily anymore, and that end-to-end encryption also is no more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwxaRPuJkyU

Personally, I have my smartphone active, but in a muffled case and always at home, i never take it with me. For emergency calls from my parents, I have an old mobile with me, a Samsung E1150:
https://cdn.idealo.com/folder/Product/2976/4/2976425/s1_produktbild_gross/samsung-e1150-schwarz.jpg
No sensitive data on my smartpohone, no banking or shopping stuff, no access to my bank acount data. The biggest risk I currently have, is Paypal and its hilariously easy ways to be abused by fraudsters and robbers. I just need a better trustworthy alternative, and they will be dead for me. But there is none, digital payment options always imply risks that are quite bigger than the ordinary consumer is aware of - or wants to be made aware of. Guests account for paypal. IBAN for bank accounts. More it doe snti take to screw you. Many do not know how easy it is - it does not need your active help. Currently your only protection is the size of the swarm you swim in, predators cannot bite each and every fish in it.