After months of silence, Microsoft finally revealed that Copilot’s most controversial feature, Recall, would return from October Not everyone was happy with the return, especially given that Microsoft still has much more to do to Convince users to use Recall Fortunately, the company seems to have added the ability to uninstall Recall from Windows, but this feature may not be available to everyone.
Microsoft's recall feature can soon be uninstalled … hopefully
As the German website discovered DeskmodderMicrosoft has added the ability to uninstall Recall in an optional Windows 11 update. As it says (translated from German):
Previously, you could only block the function or deactivate it in the settings. With the optional update KB5041865, you can now also uninstall Recall from the system. Recall has been added as a Windows function.
This was added in the old Control Panel -> Programs and Features -> Turn Windows features on or off. Interestingly, this entry is currently missing in Windows 11 Canary.
That's all well and good – but what's the catch? Well, it's important to note that Deskmodder draws its information from a German version of Windows 11. European versions of Windows work slightly differently than in the rest of the world, as the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA) requires companies operating on the continent to comply with certain laws. This includes the ability to uninstall certain features – such as Recall.
However, as we learned the hard way, tech companies don't always feel obligated to roll out these DMA changes to the rest of the world, so there's a chance that uninstalling Recall is an EU-exclusive feature. Fortunately, there are ways to enable EEA features on Windows 10 and 11 wherever you are. Hopefully, someone will find a way to do the same for Recall.