Microsoft’s trying to force OneDrive on us yet again; Microsoft Recall Still Spying on Users; Microsoft’s up to its old tricks, this time pushing Copilot AI… and More!
Every day, we scan the tech world for interesting news, sometimes from outside the tech world. Every Thursday, we feature news articles that grabbed our attention over the past week. We hope you find this week’s ‘Thursday Newsbytes’ informative and interesting!
In a new promo video for the Windows Backup app
Microsoft has published a video clip explaining how easy it is to move to Windows 11 using the Backup app to transfer the contents of your Windows 10 PC (or most of them, anyway).
Windows Latest spotted the new promotional video from Microsoft, which shows how easy it is to make the leap to a Windows 11 PC (see the clip below).
As the video makes clear, you can back up your personal files, Windows settings, and also some apps from your Windows 10 PC, and transfer them directly to a Windows 11 computer with a minimum of fuss (or that’s certainly the idea).
To be fair to Microsoft, it also points out the major catches with using the Windows Backup app to switch over to a Windows 11 PC.
Namely, that you can’t take third-party apps with you – they need manual reinstallation, only Microsoft Store apps can be ported across (their pins will be where you left them, and you can click on the relevant pin to restore the application) – and that you’re limited to 5GB of files by default.
The 5GB restriction is in place because the backup that the Windows app creates is stored on OneDrive – so you need an account with Microsoft’s cloud storage locker. The basic free account only has 5GB of cloud storage, and if you want more space than that, you’ll have to pay for a OneDrive subscription…
New report finds security loopholes still exist in this controversial Windows 11 feature
The app stuttered into release and recall repeatedly, and was even caught capturing credit card numbers in December of 2024. It only recently returned to Windows Insiders in April of this year.
The controversial Microsoft Windows Recall AI app may still be in need of security work according to testing from the UK technology site, The Register.
The app, which takes screenshots of everything you do on your PC so you can find it later, supposedly has preventions to stop it from grabbing sensitive information like credit card numbers and passwords. However, the Register’s team recently tested Recall and discovered that the filter actually fails “in many cases.”
Recall has had a bumpy launch since it was announced as a new app for Copilot+ PCs in the summer of 2024. It was almost immediately pulled back due to security concerns, like capturing sensitive information…
Want ChatGPT? You don’t need that, try Copilot instead…
Microsoft is up to some sneaky tricks again in terms of promoting its own services, and this time it’s Copilot AI, which is now being pushed on those using Bing search.
As Windows Latest reports, if you go to Bing.com and search for a major AI service that rivals Microsoft’s own Copilot – meaning ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, or Claude AI – you’ll get a Copilot banner popping up.
This appears right at the top of the search, announcing that ‘Your Copilot is here’ and offering a prompt to ask Microsoft’s AI ‘anything’. You can then type a query in the presented box if you want, and it’ll open up the Copilot website with the results.
This behavior is implemented via the Bing search site itself, so it’ll happen if you go to Bing.com in any web browser (not just Edge).
While the Copilot banner that Bing search serves up is labelled as ‘Promoted by Microsoft’, the company has chosen a very small font for that particular detail, so it’s easy enough to miss.
In fact, the way the search result is laid out in this scenario is quite deceptive in a few aspects.
Microsoft offers mysterious Windows 11 upgrade on incompatible PCs
But don’t be fooled! The TPM 2.0 hardware requirement for Windows 11 still stands.
So many people haven’t been able to upgrade their older Windows computers to Windows 11 because of the latter’s TPM 2.0 hardware requirement. (Learn more about why you need TPM 2.0 for Windows 11, why TPM 2.0 makes PCs better, and why Microsoft is adamant about not letting older PCs without TPM 2.0 run Windows 11.)
Some users, however, are saying that they’ve been offered upgrades to Windows 11 on older PCs that don’t meet the TPM 2.0 hardware requirements, reports Neowin.
It’s a bit of a head-scratcher since Microsoft hasn’t announced anything official about lowering the system requirements for Windows 11, but this isn’t the first time the company has offered Windows 11 upgrades on incompatible computers that don’t meet the requirements.
It’s highly likely that this is a bug or an exception. Some users have reported that their system theoretically had TPM 2.0 but was manually disabled it before the update was offered. Whether Microsoft makes a distinction here, however, is questionable.
So far, Microsoft has not deviated from its strict hardware requirements…
Thanks for reading this week’s Thursday Newbytes. We hope these articles were informative, interesting, fun, and helpful.
