4d ago

Microsoft Gives European Union Users More Control: Uninstall Edge, Store, and Say Goodbye to Bing Prompts

blogs.windows.com Updates to Windows for the Digital Markets Act

As part of Microsoft’s ongoing commitment to compliance with the Digital Markets Act, we are making the following changes to Windows 10, Windows 11, and Microsoft apps in the European Economic Area (EEA). We’ll update this post as these changes a

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For those curious, if you can get a European Windows product key, you can install the "N" version of Windows. Be warned, it only works with certain product keys....
The standard Windows installer should give the option of "Windows 10" or "Windows 10 N" (or similar). The N version is basically bloatware free out of the box....
The regular version has a bunch of promos pre-installed, like candy crush, and other things that most people couldn't give a shit about....
Recently I've been playing a "fun" game with my work laptop where I'll remove copilot, and a few days later it will appear again. Weeee. In that case, it wouldn't surprise me if there's a policy in place to enable copilot on my works systems.... I'm sure someone who works here, probably higher up the food chain than me, wants it enabled, and the ham fisted policy maker can't create a policy just for those who want it, so everyone gets it because the bosses son Shane decided that he wants to see how much of his work can get done by AI so he can do even less while on the clock.
- Companies absolutely HATE copilot. I remember they didn’t even like Siri enabled on the Mac’s where I used to work. No way in hell copilot is getting a pass.
  
  I work for a fairly large company, and we're hearing about "AI" constantly. CoPilot is available and its use encouraged. Also, in the cybersecurity space, AI is fucking everywhere. Vendors won't shut up about their "AI Enabled" products. And the new hotness is "Agentic AI", which is basically automation, but we're going to let AI hallucinations fire off the automated process which could bring production systems down.
  Good times are surely coming. /s
  
  Don't underestimate management desire to be absolutely indistinguishable from their competition.
  They read the Harvard Business Review, learn new terms they don't understanding, make a PowerPoint out of it and voila, they are "innovative" like everyone else.
  If HBR put "AI" on its cover you can be damn sure all those innovators are going to put AI wherever they can.
  
  Heh, it's a small business and bossman isn't exactly anti-AI.
- N editions should exclude just certain media features. I remember it trying in Win 7 days and never touched it again, never saw a point. Some additional info. Important bit is to not use Home edition, use Pro, Education or Enterprise instead.
  As for Copilot, is there anything under these registry keys?
  HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsCopilot
  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsCopilot
  
  Neither of those keys exist.
  Probably because I keep uninstalling the software.
  
  If those keys do not exist, then there is no policy configured to either force enable or disable Copilot.

184 comments