Microsoft is ready to release Windows Recall after nearly a year of delay

Since its introduction, Windows Recall has always been considered by Microsoft as a “heavy weapon” to convince users to upgrade to the new generation of Copilot+ PC models. And at the same time, it has also been one of the most controversial features of Windows over the years.

Specifically, Windows Recall uses AI to continuously "read" and save everything displayed on the screen as a series of screenshots, allowing users to find any moment that was ever opened on the computer.

If you're interested, Recall is currently rolling out to users in the Windows Insider Release Preview Channel.

You’ve probably heard a lot about Recall since Microsoft announced it last year, because it’s been a big topic of discussion. PC World editor Mark Hachman took a deep dive into Recall when it was in the Insider Preview Dev Channel back in December.

Dev Channel is like the earliest alpha test version of Windows 11, while Release Preview is equivalent to the beta version preparing for public release.

At that time, Recall's performance was considered slow and laggy, although Microsoft tried to appease users with some security features such as forcing Windows Hello authentication every time you reopen your own activity history. However, this system at that time was unstable and buggy, completely unable to replace manual operations such as taking screenshots or saving regular bookmarks for later reference.

Is storing your entire photo history on your PC, even if Microsoft promises absolute security, really worth the privacy trade-off? That's up to each user to decide.

In the enterprise environment, there seems to be a lot of strong opposition, because Microsoft has confirmed that this feature will be disabled by default on Windows Enterprise version. And for regular users, you can also completely turn off or remove Recall if you don't want to use it.

So when will the general public get to experience it?

There are currently no Copilot+ PCs available to test the latest Recall build on Insider Release Preview. However, if you own a Copilot+ device and are part of the Windows Insider program, you can try it out for yourself.

It is expected that after the recent not-so-successful launch, Microsoft will try to launch Recall for all Windows 11 users and of course only limited to PCs and laptops running the new Copilot+ processor by the end of 2025.