Microsoft reboots Windows Recall, but users wish they could forget

AI snapshot tool stumbles back into the spotlight with more issues

Comment The second coming of Windows Recall has brought with it a litany of issues, reminding users that there's a reason why the snapshotting technology remains a preview for Windows Insiders.

Recall, which debuted earlier this year, is an application designed to take a snapshot of a user's screen every few seconds and store it for future retrieval. Users can "recall" what they were doing via a text query or scroll back through a timeline.

The rollout drew deserved criticism from privacy and security professionals due to its half-baked implementation. It was clearly more of an engineering demonstration that had somehow been deemed fit for release to the public before its many creases had been ironed out. These included capturing sensitive information including passwords and lacking sufficient data security measures.

Microsoft was eventually forced to pull the product less than three weeks after its announcement. The rethink was only supposed to take weeks, but after months of delay, Recall was finally re-released last week, although this time only to Windows Insiders with the requisite Copilot+ PC hardware.

Starting with Windows Insiders has proven wise, even if Copilot+ PCs are desperate for a "killer app" to justify their expense, as users have added to Microsoft's list of known Recall issues.

The biggest, which is acknowledged by Microsoft but has also been reported by users, is a delay in snapshots being stored, or the storage packing up completely. Microsoft's advice is to reboot your PC.

Then there's getting rid of Recall. It can be enabled or disabled from "Turn Windows Features on or off," but the binaries still persist. Microsoft stated: "In a future update we will completely remove the binaries."

Other reports include complaints that Recall is not accurate when storing the content of images, although one user told us the OCR aspects work well. So, good with text, but not so good with recognizing what is in an image.

Storing and retrieving snapshots appear to be causing the most issues. CNBC reported: "It can go several minutes between making snapshots, leaving gaps in the timeline."

According to a user, the preview was more locked down than the earlier incarnation, which is a good sign, although it took a while to start showing results. "Click to Do," a feature that lets users take action on selected text or images from snapshots, was mildly criticized for its limited target options.

There is no timeline for when Microsoft will consider Recall ready for general release – even in preview form. So far, it seems that while Microsoft has improved the product's security, the fact that some users must reboot to kick the snapshotting service back into life demonstrates the company has work to do.

But that, after all, is what the Windows Insider program is for. ®