The verdict is in: Windows Recall is great, actually

[Windows Central]

I’ve been using Recall since the preview became available last week, and my impressions so far are surprisingly positive, given the many privacy and security concerns, along with delays that the feature originally had.

The verdict is in: Windows Recall is great, actually : Read more

 

[arcd]

I made an account just for this.

Hah.

Hahhahhahahahahahahahhahaahh.

No, no. Absolutely not. God no. No. Nooooope. Not in a million years no. Its cool that they did their best and delayed it to try and fix it but the security problems were so unbelievably absurd (not to mention just downright comical) that even after it got fixed its reputation (alongside MS's in general; at least what's left of it) got so utterly blown out of the water that a non-insignificant amount of people switched to Linux.

There are no words to describe how poorly they managed this and quite frankly the only reason they didn't just bury it and pretended it never happened like their stupid metro apps is because some AI tech bro high on his farts already forced his team to waste wacky amounts of time and money that would otherwise go to waste at this point.

It could cure cancer and stop world hunger at this point and people would still avoid it like the plague. I'm sorry. Its reputation is ruined.

 

[Phoquer]

Nice try Diddy

how much did they pay you to put this out?

 

[Cmndr_Bytes]

Thanks for the article Zac. Look forward to trying this out.

 

[Grabber5.0]

This "review" is sponsored by Microsoft

 

[naddy69]

"Setting up Recall is a bit of a pain, requiring multiple large downloads via Windows Update before the app becomes functional."

Good. It SHOULD BE a separate app. Users SHOULD have to jump thru hoops to get this thing working. It should NOT have been announced as "Built into Windows and running by default."

MS should be stressing this point now. Recall is NOT built in. It is NOT running by default. This is what scared so many people away from Windows and made MS a laughingstock of the tech world.

 

[nop]

I'm anxious to try it out but glad its an option

 

[GraniteStateColin]

Looks excellent. Those juvenile comments above from those first-time posters notwithstanding (just people or one person with an agenda), for me this looks like the first major OS improvement in many years. I think this is transformative and will save millions of people real time. Plus, as we become more accustomed to using it and more efficient with it, those time savings will only grow. Anything that can help us, well, recall things that we vaguely remember is a masterstroke idea to bring to computers. I frequently spend many minutes, sometimes over an hour, trying to find something I knew had I been doing just in the past week or two. Sometimes I eventually find it (usually turns out I was looking for an email or a web page when it was actually in OneNote or a Teams chat or some other similar app-mix-up). Sometimes, I never find it and give up.

This could save me hours every month.

One question: everything in the example was based on screen shots. Is that the ONLY function, or can this integrate with search to look for text inside files too? For me, the biggest benefit would be if it were possible to just have a single universal search across everything including screen shot history and documents based on the same timeline (e.g., using the Last Modified Date or Picture Taken Date on the file). My guess is, due to the security complaints from the prior alpha version, they're not willing to integrate this with anything else, but I hope they add that when the security furor dies down.

My only other very, very minor concern: I understand why they require Hello for the added security initially (given that same prior press), and I'd want that on my laptop where I would worry about someone else getting their hands on it, but for my desk computer, if the computer is unlocked, that means I already recently used Hello to unlock it and am still sitting at it. I hope they'll eventually drop that requirement to avoid the momentary hassle. (My Logitech BRIO Hello camera requires me to lean forward and stare into the camera for it to unlock, which is relatively quick, but not as quick as not having to do it.)

 

[DaveDansey]

I guess I must be more organised than most; I can't recall the last time I couldn't easily find something I wanted.

 

[ameliadavis]

I’ve been using Recall since the preview became available last week, and my impressions so far are surprisingly positive, given the many privacy and security concerns, along with delays that the feature originally had.

The verdict is in: Windows Recall is great, actually : Read more

Totally agree I had my doubts too, especially with all the privacy debates surrounding Windows Recall, but after trying it out, it's a game-changer for productivity. The way it organizes everything so seamlessly feels like having a personal assistant built right into your system. Were you able to explore all its features, or is there one that stood out to you?

 

[dharmababa]

I guess I must be more organised than most; I can't recall the last time I couldn't easily find something I wanted.

Glad to see some more balanced responses lol. I'm with you - I don't doubt that Zac and others will find it genuinely useful but I am also a bit obsessively organized so it may just not be for us. That said, I'll probably give it some time to mature and try it out when it is out of preview. I'll be open to being surprised but also wouldn't be shocked if it goes mostly unused (and eventually uninstalled to save the resources).

Related question for Zac: Did you notice any perf impacts? What is the RAM usage, etc.?