Microsoft isn’t secretly installing Recall on your Windows PC

Microsoft’s Recall feature, which creates screenshots of mostly everything you see or do on a Copilot Plus PC, has been mired in controversy ever since it was announced earlier this year. After security researchers found that a pre-release version of the Recall database wasn’t encrypted, Microsoft moved to delay the feature and overhaul it with a big focus on security.

Recall still isn’t even available to test yet on Copilot Plus PCs, but some good old fashioned fear, uncertainty, and doubt is spreading about Microsoft supposedly secretly installing it on the latest version of Windows 11.

IT manager and YouTuber Chris Titus first discovered that Microsoft’s latest update to Windows 11, version 24H2, has references to Recall that confusingly make it seem like it’s enabled in the operating system. “Recall is getting installed on every single system in 24H2,” claimed Titus in a YouTube video that claims Recall is mandatory. “More so… it is a dependency in File Explorer. That should alarm a lot of people.”

I saw the YouTube video and immediately started looking into what was going on. Microsoft has been very clear that Recall will be an optional experience once it returns, and even that it can be fully uninstalled by users. So why would a Recall feature look like it’s enabled on 24H2 installs?

“Ever since the Recall security fiasco in summer, all insider and production builds lack Recall completely,” explains Windows watcher Albacore, in messages to The Verge. Albacore created the Amperage tool that allowed Recall to run on older Snapdragon chips. The references we’re seeing in current installs of 24H2 are related to Microsoft making it easier for system admins to remove Recall or disable it. “Ironically, Microsoft going out of its way to make [Recall] removal easier is being flipped into AI / spying / whatever hoaxes,” says Albacore.

Microsoft’s blunt removal of Recall over the summer appears to have led to some bugs in how the feature appears and is controlled. Users of Titus’ Windows Utility had reported crashing issues with File Explorer if the Recall feature was disabled for new installs on Windows 11, version 24H2. An uninstall option for Recall also appeared in September, and Microsoft called it a bug before later revealing that Windows users would, in fact, be able to uninstall Recall.

“Microsoft has an ungodly complex and long winded system for integrating development changes into a mainline build, parts of the optional-izing work were most likely not merged at once, and thus produce crash loops in very specific scenarios that slipped testing,” explains Albacore.

I asked Microsoft to explain the references to Recall appearing in 24H2, but the company would only reinforce once again that Recall is an opt-in experience and you can remove it.

“The preview of Recall for Copilot Plus PCs has not yet been made available to Windows Insiders,” says Brandon LeBlanc, senior product manager of Windows, in a statement to The Verge. “However, information on Recall shared in David Weston’s blog from September, including confirmation that Recall is an opt-in experience and that users can also remove Recall, remains true.”

Fears around Recall being secretly installed or enabled in Windows 11 have now spread across YouTube, with many videos offering up ways to “remove” the feature that isn’t even present in Windows 11 version 24H2. “Recall is implemented by the AIX user experience package, and in all current builds the package is simply a stub,” says Albacore.

We’re now waiting on Microsoft to release Recall to Windows Insiders, something it promised to do in October, so that security researchers can test Microsoft’s latest changes and see how the opt-in and uninstall processes work. With just a few days left until November, Microsoft is cutting it fine if it’s going to release a preview of Recall in time.