Your PC's anti-ransomware superpower

Plus: Microsoft's Recall controversy continues  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ [Windows Intelligence](#) [Windows Intelligence](#) Brought to you by: [HubSpot logo](​ This week was packed with news thanks to Computex 2024 in Taipei. Qualcomm wants to take over the laptop-with-long-battery market. And Intel isn't giving up without a fight. But this newsletter is about helping you use your current PC. And this week, I'd like to recommend a nice security feature you can activate in Windows with just a few clicks. Let's get to it. But hey, one quick question first: 🗳️ [What type of smartphone do you use?]() Vote in this week's poll! [Chris Hoffman, AUthor] Chris Today's read: ⌚ 3 Things to Know: 2 minutes ⌚ 3 Things to Try: 2 minutes ⌚ Top Thurrott Thoughts: 30 seconds ⌚ Just for Fun: 30 seconds ​ [] [3 Things to Know This Week] ​ 1. Microsoft's Recall is a spitting image of Google software from 2008 ➜ THE SHORT VERSION: If you used a Windows XP PC between 2004 and 2008, you may be familiar with Google Desktop. Google's desktop search tool from 20 years ago has a lot in common with Microsoft Recall. 🔎 KNOW MORE: Google Desktop was a powerful desktop search tool that watched your web browsing, chats, emails, documents, files, and more, giving you the kind of "one stop shop" for searching that Microsoft Recall aims to deliver. - Just like with Recall, anyone could sit down at your unlocked Windows XP or Vista PC and search for nearly anything you had done on your computer. The first version of Google Chrome also kept track of all the words on web pages you visited. - Google has now announced plans for its own version of Recall on Chromebooks, which will be a "memory" of everything you've done. - I don't remember a lot of privacy complaints about Google Desktop and Google Chrome at the time. I bet we trusted tech companies a little more back then. 📌 READ MORE: Take a nostalgic look back in [my latest Computerworld column](=) — or read about [Google's plans for its own versions of Recall](). --------------------------------------------------------------- 2. The privacy debate over Recall continues ➜ THE SHORT VERSION: Windows Recall isn't as bad for privacy as it may seem at first glance. But there are a lot of valid concerns and unanswered questions — and Microsoft is being too quiet and not doing a good job of answering them. 🔎 KNOW MORE: Everyone's talking about the news that Recall can be enabled on any old PC — and how bad Recall's privacy is when you hack it to run in this way. - In Recall's defense, it will only be available on new Copilot+ PCs, you can choose to disable it, and it will use advanced security features on new hardware to protect your Recall data — which is only stored on your computer. - Paul Thurrott points out that we don't know enough yet. All we know is that people have ripped the Recall software out of Windows, enabled it on PCs it wasn't designed for, and demonstrated that's a bad idea. - Of course, Ars Technica makes the case that "Recall demands an extraordinary level of trust that Microsoft hasn’t earned." That's a fair argument, and I hope Microsoft gets the message. 📌 READ MORE: Check out [Paul Thurrott's take on the Recall privacy concerns](). (It's a Premium article — but you can read 3 Premium articles for free each month if you create an account.) Or, take a look at [the case against Recall from Ars](=). --------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Battery life improvements are more exciting than AI ➜ THE SHORT VERSION: At Computex 2024 this week, Intel just detailed its new "Lunar Lake" computing platform, which will be arriving in the coming months. 🔎 KNOW MORE: As usual, Intel and everyone else at Computex couldn't stop talking about AI. But even if you don't care about AI, the battery life promises we're hearing are what's really exciting. - Intel (and AMD) need to deliver big battery-life improvements for thin-and-light laptops to avoid a repeat of what happened in the Mac market, where Apple dumped Intel's hardware for its own M-series chips. - Thankfully, it looks like competition is paying off and we can all expect laptops with huge battery life gains soon — if we can believe what these companies are promising. - The first laptops powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite hardware will arrive on June 18, and Intel Lunar Lake PCs should arrive in the coming months, too. 📌 READ MORE: Discover what's happening with all the new hardware — Intel Lunar Lake, AMD Strix Point, and Qualcomm Snapdragon — in [my latest feature story for PCWorld](=). SPONSORED MESSAGE Turn AI into your personal assistant (for free) Wish you had an extra set of hands to take care of all those time-sucking, menial tasks? [Cute monster with 6 arms multitasking](​ You’re not alone — millions of professionals worldwide use AI to execute work tasks, and now, so can you! The [AI Task Delegation Playbook]( by HubSpot teaches you how to[turn AI into your personal assistant]( (absolutely free). This bundle of curated Google Sheets will maximize your productivity, organization, and time, with… 💪 Plug-and-play templates you can use today 🛠️ Tools for email, content creation, lead generation, and more 🗃️ Organizers to keep your tasks nice ‘n’ tidy! The only question is: What will you do with all your newfound time? ➜ [Don’t fall behind! Download the AI delegation guide at no cost and enhance your entire workflow!]( [USE AI TO GET MORE DONE TODAY!​ ➜]( ​ [] [3 Things to Try This Week] 1. Activate ransomware protection in Windows Lots of security companies want to sell you ransomware protection solutions to ensure your files can't be locked up and held for ransom by malicious software. ➜ Backups are always a good failsafe against this sort of thing, but Windows also has a built-in anti-ransomware solution that can help. It's called "controlled folder access" and is turned off by default, but you can activate it in a few clicks. ⌚ You can flip this switch in 10 seconds. 💻 This feature is available on both Windows 10 and Windows 11. 📌 Check out [my new guide to using this feature]( for the details. --------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Turn your user account into a local account (if you want) Microsoft is reportedly making it more difficult to set up Windows 11 without a Microsoft account, blocking some popular workarounds. But you can still use your PC without a Microsoft account. ➜ Using a PC with a Microsoft account is probably a better choice for most people. But if you want a traditional local user account, you can still get one — and I'll show you how. ⌚ You can find this option in less than 10 seconds. 💻 This works on both Windows 10 and Windows 11. The easiest way to use a local account? Just provide a Microsoft account to your Windows PC while setting up your PC the first time. Then, you can convert the Microsoft account to a local account after setting up Windows. To do this, just open the Settings app, and click Accounts > Your info. Then, use the "Sign in with a local account instead" link. You can choose to do this at any time. [The Settings > Accounts > Your info > Sign in with a local account instead link.] 📌 Want to set up a Windows PC without providing a Microsoft account during the setup process? It's still possible with [this bypass trick I've shared]( — but Microsoft makes it a little more complicated. --------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Minimize all windows except your current one Have a lot of windows floating around? You can quickly minimize them all — except the one you're currently using — to get a clutter-free desktop. ➜ All it takes is one quick keyboard shortcut — one that most people definitely don't know about. ⌚ You can do this in 2 seconds. 💻 This works on both Windows 10 and Windows 11. Just press Windows+Home. That's the Windows key and the Home key. Windows will minimize all windows except the current window you have in focus. You can press Windows+Home again to "undo" the shortcut and get all your windows back. [Minimizing other windows with Windows+Home on Windows 11.] One quick tip: On some keyboards, the Home key is combined with another key, and you may have to use a "Function" key to activate it. So, you may have to press Windows+Fn+Home on your keyboard. ​ [] [Top Thurrott Thoughts] Some standout links and expert analysis from our friends at Thurrott, who have been covering Windows since 1994: - ​[Google is Working on a Recall Feature for ChromeOS](​ - Google is following Microsoft here. - ​[Microsoft, Please Address the Recall Concerns Immediately (Premium)]() - Paul Thurrott's take on Recall privacy concerns is excellent. - ​[Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Series Chips Are Coming to “All PC Form Factors”]( - That means ARM-powered desktop PCs. - ​[Microsoft Celebrates 15 Years of Bing](​ - 🥳 - ​[Nvidia GeForce RTX AI PCs to Get Copilot+ PC Capabilities](=) - New PCs only! ​ [Recommended Newsletter]()[Recommended Newsletter]()[Recommended Newsletter]() [And Just for Funsies...] This week, I'd like to share an official Microsoft advertisement with you here. Hey, I think it's funny — I laughed when I saw it! While this looks like a fake image I pulled from somewhere, it's [a real Microsoft advertisement](). As my friend and colleague Justin Pot put it in [his newsletter](=): Three meetings at once. It's so funny that, when I saw people making fun of it, I assumed it was a meme or an Onion parody. Nope: Microsoft really did run this as an ad on Instagram. This is what they think we want from their supposedly world-changing technology: the ability to attend more meetings. ​ Now, Copilot's ability to transcribe a meeting and highlight the key points is cool, and in theory it could make meetings more efficient. It's easy to imagine, in a healthy work culture, where that gain in time allows people to spend more time doing the actually productive parts of their job. ​ Instead this ad assumes the opposite will happen. It imagines a future where we use our efficiency gains to attend more meetings. AI tools can be compelling and useful. It's funny that Microsoft's marketing department thinks we all want to sit through more meetings. Take care! That's about it for this week. In a week and a half, I'll get my hands on one of those new Copilot+ PCs and we can really see what's going on with Recall and all those AI features: Are they a privacy nightmare? Does Microsoft make them easy to turn off? How useful are they? I'll know more real soon, so stay tuned. --------------------------------------------------------------- 📊 Last week's poll results: Most people had a favorite old-school instant messaging app, and here are the rankings: - ICQ: 25.7% - MSN Messenger: 24.3% - AOL Instant Messenger (AIM): 12.2% - Yahoo! Messenger: 10.8% But "none of the above" reigned supreme with 27% of the vote. 🗳️ [What type of smartphone do you use?]() Vote in this week's Windows Intelligence poll! 🤚 Wait! Before you go: What'd you think of this issue? [Thumbs Up]( [Thumbs Down]() Hit the thumbs-up or thumbs-down to cast your vote and let me know. Want less email? [Update your reading preferences](=) to opt out of any individual publications or unsubscribe entirely. New here and not yet subscribed? Take two seconds to [sign up for our newsletters](): Windows Intelligence, Android Intelligence, or Cool Tools (or all three!). Hungry for even more? [Learn about becoming an Intelligence Insider](=) to gain access to our one-of-a-kind community, power-packed advanced resources, on-demand help desk, and tons of free apps and services. Independent journalism relies on you. 🤝 An [Intelligence Insider membership](=) is the best way to support my work and keep this newsletter sustainable. Not ready for a membership? You can also support my work by making a [direct one-time contribution](=) (or contribute via [PayPal]( or [Venmo](=)) to ensure I'm able to keep writing for you long into the future.