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

184 comments

Uninstalling the store would be the biggest feature. A lot of telemetry is tied to it. I tried some of the "debloaters" out there, but the windows Installation breaks after a couple of months (I assume when ms pushes a new major update).

I will even uninstall Windows

Oh look, with the threat of a big enough fine, you can uninstall those things.
Or at least hide the front ends for them.

Linux gives all global users more control: Uninstall Windows, say goodbye to Microsoft
- I would love to, but we stiill use Windows specific software (and sometimes even Dos specific software!) but we already do that through a VM. The other issue is the extensions we have for Microsoft Office just won't work on the Linux alternatives and even then Libreoffice isn't good enough for half the staff in my accounting firm because it lacks certain features for now.
  Most companies who work in browser based software + email can easily switch to Linux and they would barely notice it.
  
  even then Libreoffice isn’t good enough for half the staff in my accounting firm because it lacks certain features for now.
  The worst part is where some functionality breaks in a document bigger than a holiday card. I mean formulae vanishing.
  I think OOO around year 2009 was very stable and without such annoying bugs. But I haven't tested it there TBH.
  Seriously, feature parity is a dead end. If there were a cross-platform office suite that would at least support the absolutely necessary things with a format not much more complex than org-mode, big documents (300 pages without degrading performance) and UTF-8, it would be fine. I think. That format can even be XML-based, just ... why would you have vanishing objects in a document past their certain number? Do they have an unsigned byte counter somewhere?
  
  I would love to, but we stiill use Windows specific software
  If I had 1 cent every time I read that... and I pulled those cents together... and then paid software developers to build that missing software for other OSes like Linux... then we'd gradually see less of those comments.
  It's as if the isolation was the business model, proprietary software insuring that alternatives do not exist because users do not bother to get together and unstuck themselves from glowingly dangerous (security wise but probably even financially dependencies.
  Hopefully initiatives like NLNet are precisely trying to alleviate such challenges. Until them compatibility layers like Proton are showing the way with arguably some of the most complex and demanding in terms of performance software, namely games.
- I'd love to at work, but I'm using some win-only software with a f-ed up licence manager that I cannot stuff into a VM.
- Now switch package managers and run all your drives on different obscure file systems! Make every login cycle through plasma gnome an unhinged custom DE and raw terminal where a camera with sign language recognition is the only valid input!
  Create a script to revert to systemd every third startup!
  
  Which distro hurt you?
  
  Sounds like half of the process your average Windows debloater goes through every time they update?
  
  Edit: I read further down...Arch is a bit of a motherfucker. Sorry.
  
  You're doing something wrong, maybe ask someone knowledgeable for help with your system. It doesn't happen to other people.

Imagine living somewhere where those in charge have even there smallest bit of spine.
- mmm, that was nice. can i have another?

Europeans have the Freedom to Uninstall SPYWARE? LoL COMMIES here in America we have TRUE FREEDOM of being FORCE FED SPYWARE with NO Other options!
- the other option is a faster, more privacy focused, free, open source operating system.
  I made the switch a little over a year ago, I know not everybody can/wants to - but major distros are honestly polished enough these days that I haven't looked back, I should have switched to Linux years ago.
  Not everyone will agree, but I think Ubuntu + installing apps through Flatpak is a winning option.

The best control: uninstall Windows.

To get pedantic for a second. The title of this post is "Microsoft gives..." as if this was an altruistic act that Microsoft decided to do for some people, when the article states they did it to comply with a law.
A much better title would have been "EU Forces Microsoft to Give Users More Control:" It returns the credit to the people who deserve the credit and clarifies that it wasn't something Microsoft did willingly.
- Not pedantic. The specificity, imo, is extremely important here, and the poor phrasing really bothered me, too.

In other words: Users of proprietary OS like Windows have so little control over their own devices that it's newsworthy when the vendor allows you to uninstall 2-3 bundled things out of many more. But only in some countries! It's pathetic.
- Tbh everything listed is how 10 LTSC came by default for all users.
  
  10 ltsc?

Huh, well ill continue living without all that shit on Linux Mint.
- Mint... more than just a delicious herb!

So I could have a usable machine at work? Good. I am forced to upgrade from win7 to win11 in the lab, and current win11 crap did not appeal to me at all. And it has WSL, so at least it can actually be used for work.

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.

Gotta LOVE the EU, they're working at a glacial pace but sooner or later (most likely later) it changes the landscape for the better.
If only enshittification would happen slow enough for the EU to catch up to.
- I reeeeally wish they would just embrace and find open source software as a public good and get it over with. The equally glacial pace of adoption of OSS to avoid vendor lock in with MS is not exactly giving the OSS world the boost it deserves.
  
  Yeah, well the DMA wasn't going to cost most EU politicians much of their good ol' corporate lobbying monies. But switching the EU off of Micro$oft would definitely not only lose those funds, but also introduce way more vigorous counter-lobbying.
  One pro of the EU's glacial pace is that they frog-boil the shareholders, meaning most counter-lobbying activities are relatively tame.
  But damn, do I wish they would just give the finger to all those ~~american~~ corporations and start a 4-year transition to OSS.
  
  The EU is pumping a lot of money into FLOSS, often not even for administrative use (like, say, lemmy gets EU funding), but at far as adoption rate in administration is concerned well the Commission is one of the worst offenders. As in municipalities realising they can't fully switch to LibreOffice because they need to apply for EU funds and the commission only accepts .docx. Parliament happily spending money on something and the executive getting around to getting its shit together are two different things.
  OTOH it's not all about Microsoft and the like, a lot of administrative software is special-purpose, written by private companies according to specs, paid for by public money. Making that kind of thing open source is a no-brainer. It's also a way better use of money to improve and customise some open source ERP than to go to SAP and get a customised solution there.
  And a lot of that has to do with lacking competency in administration -- outside of police, specifically IT forensics, it's usually quite dire. States have no issues figuring out whether a blueprint makes sense when they're issuing building permits, road and railroad engineering, of course they can do that, but IT? Nope. Bring in the private consultants and private consultants are basically the marketing arm of big software companies.
  
  Schleswig Holstein (sp?) are doing so, ditto Copenhagen and Aarhaus (DK) and I believe France are looking into it
- I agree it feels very slow, but identifying the correct action and then building consensus around that action takes time. Once consensus is built it is very stable though. That is supposed to be the biggest benefit of democracy; stability built through coalition.
- I have a copy of Windows 10 LTSC that I have installed on a virtual machine just in case I need the one last program that I use that I cannot get to work on Linux.
  Lately I upgraded my machine and had to reinstall everything. As I was installing Windows on my VM, it started demanding that I create an account and wouldn't let me proceed without one, asked me to associate third party accounts to my OS and was generally being extremely intrusive and forceful in ways I didn't remember it being before, like opening Edge and forcing me to click through an introduction that I didn't want without giving me the option to close it. I then realized that I had forgotten to disable network access to my VM and that Windows had downloaded updates during the install.
  I immediately destroyed that VM and started over again, this time without allowing it to connect to internet. Suddenly the experience was far better.
  The moment I had let Windows connect to the internet it had thoroughly enshittified itself. It let me appreciate how badly Microsoft has enshittified Windows 10 over the years ever since its release. We are far away from the Windows 7 days.
  
  I wish Microsoft would just let me buy a copy of Windows 11 Ultimate and be done with it. No restrictions, no bloat, privacy, just an exchange of money for a product.
  
  Ltsc or ltsc iot? Only the IOT lasts long enough and is debloated.
- They’re moving faster than any other government regulatory body.
- I wish we could join soon, but that's also happening at the glacial pace
- If the EU could borrow some texans, release them in the european parliament, and tell them "lobbyist" means homosexual in european (since apparently that's all they need to start shooting someone), the EU would work a lot faster

Funny what happens when you have a government that actually gives a shit.
- Thats what happens when you get unionised.
  (because the EU is a type of Union)
- I just wish they didn't also constantly try to force backdoors into everything...
- I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with this concept…
- European governments and the EU definitely don't care about us, their citizens, but most do see the threat coming from USA these days, thankfully

how do i europe

Since this sublemmy doesn't have any requirement for the title to be the same as the source, can we actually have a correct title: "Microsoft abides to laws in EU and does <...>", or even better "Microsoft is forced under EU law to <...>".
The title makes it appear as if it's out of charity and goodness of their corporate heart. (Fabrication)
- Seriously. Correct title is “EU gives EU users more control”
- The title makes it appear as if it's out of charity and goodness of their corporate heart
  Only to someone that has been living under a rock for the last decade. Everyone else is able to deduct from the "to European users" in the title that the EU forced their hand
  
  Correct. You're right, without context (or as you put it - living under a rock) one comes to the wrong conclusion.
- I mean they kind of are? It's not like M$ couldn't just pay the fines and keep things as is.
  
  No its not, the object of a corp in this modern era we live in is to milk as much money out of the customer without caring about them. The EU laws are the only thing protecting their customers from microsofts greed. microsoft IS being forced to do this and thats a GOOD thing.
  
  Microsoft is also after those juicy administrative contracts, and right now, with US-skepticism sky-rocketing everywhere in Europe, they are terrified that the EU might mandate that administrations have to use (or, at least, have to use more in the coming years) European-made software.
  Loosing those EU contracts wouldn't just be lost money at a time where Microsoft is pumping more and more money into AI with not a single cent of profit on the horizon, it's also leaving the door open for a competitor to gain worldwide legitimacy and challenge their monopoly in business software.
  And that is worst case scenario for them. That's why every tech giant has been pourring billions into trying to capture the chinese market. Because where they did not succeed, another brand started taking their place.
  How would you feel if, in the coming years, a good chunk of the EU administration were to switch to Nextcloud? If, following that move, ISPs started providing those same services to end user? If more and more people switched from MS Office to other office suites that ACTUALLY follow standards and are interoperable? Would one's reasons for staying with the MS Ecosystem in general crumble?
  And if you think that's not possible, remeber where Yahoo was, and where they are now. In the recent Google trial, there were internal memos showing that Google was actually concerned about DuckDuckGo, and had to prepare a strategy to ripost just in case. DDG has 0.3% percent marketshare.
  All giants have clay legs, it's just a matter of making them bend the knee :)

But I thought Edge was so crucial for the system to function it can't be removed? That's what MS told me at least, and I definitely trust them
- No that's internet explorer. They "removed" it, but really it's just hidden in a way so you can't run it directly.
  
  Windows 11 does not allow Edge to be removed. There may be some roundabout ways to do it, but the system actively puts up a LOT of roadblocks. It’s extremely trashy.
  
  I just found out the other day that items pinned to the taskbar are in %AppData%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar. 🤦‍♂️
  Microsoft is a sad parody of itself.

Microsoft is grudgingly forced to give...*

Make it world wide!

🇪🇺the🇪🇺land🇪🇺of🇪🇺the🇪🇺free🇪🇺

Perhaps sometime in the future, more people will try Linux and see how good it is. My recommendation based on my own experience:
Want stable, just working. Robust workhorse: Try Debian
Want newest, nicest, good for gaming (need a tiny bit of tinkering if you run Nvidia): Try Fedora
Want easy to install, but a bit older and slower, but requires no tinkering: Try PopOS
Don't like settings, tweaks and fuzz: choose Gnome desktop 😊
- I'm sad to say I had to drop Linux for a while because I run Nvidia. I heard that AMD is fine, and that Nvidia is baaaadically fine with a few issues still so I gave it a shot. But games just genuinely run noticeably worse with an Nvidia card. Games would lose 20-30 frames. Maybe not a big deal with my setup if I was using a 60hz monitor since most were still above 60, but I'm using 144hz.
  It sucks too because it's not fedora or Linux as a whole's fault. It's Nvidia's.
  Thought about keeping it but already had a few things I needed to dual boot windows for. If I still need windows for gaming, basically that leaves idly browsing the web as fedora's main use. And I think that's a bit overkill.
  Looking forward to eventually getting an AMD card (Legit if you're reading this and thinking about upgrading or building a new PC and think there even a small chance you'd go with Linux in the future, go AMD) or even just a whole new build. That way I can just delegate my current machine for those few tasks I need windows for, and have a main machine for general use.
  
  The relatively bad linux experience, plus all the news about nvidia being the scum of the earth, is what made me go with a solid AMD card instead.
  
  Same for me, sorta. I have to dualboot Windows and Linux because I just can't seem to fix the jankiness of my gaming experience on the latter. I wanna make a full AMD build but I not really a good idea to splurge in this economy.
- I know its not everybody's cup of tea, but plain standard Ubuntu these days has a lot of polish and interoperability. The addition of gnome tweaks, extensions, and flatpak have left me not wanting much extra customisation.
  This is after being on a dozen other distros and finding ironically they can be less customisable unless I want to spend an entire in terminal.
- My whole system is AMD so switching to Linux was a breeze. A few days ago I installed Fedora KDE Plasma because I genuinely enjoyed the look and feel of Windows, but I wanted it without the Microsoft part. And I have to say, no regrets. I'm getting everything done without the BS, and all my games work just fine. It did need some very weird tinkering to set it up properly, and I made ChatGPT work overtime to feed me answers. Nobody would have to put in the amount of effort I did though, and if it wasn't for my niche problems, everything would have been handled without a hitch. The terminal still scares me but I've learned several tricks.
- Xubuntu is stable, lightweight, easy to install, and requires no tinkering. No idea about gaming, but I'd choose it over Debian and PopOS at any given time.

Please let them also remove all the XBox nonsense. The other day my laptop from work that runs Windows 11 Pro gave a big ass prompt if I didn't want to try XBox Game Pass with the new Doom game. It's basically an ad for games on a Pro machine, ridiculous.
- You know what is truly ridiculous? It's when I installed Windows N (the version without all that bullshit), but each time I launched a game, it complained that some Xbox app was missing. When I finally said, 'Fuck it, let's install that crap,' I learned that it isn't even possible to install on that Windows edition. Yet they would still show me the error about the missing app nonetheless. Every. Single. Time.
- You can already do that:
  undefined
  
  Get-AppxPackage "Microsoft.XboxApp" | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage "Microsoft.XboxIdentityProvider" | Remove-AppxPackage -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue Get-AppxPackage "Microsoft.XboxSpeechToTextOverlay" | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage "Microsoft.XboxGameOverlay" | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage "Microsoft.XboxGamingOverlay" | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage "Microsoft.Xbox.TCUI" | Remove-AppxPackage Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\GameBar" -Name "AutoGameModeEnabled" -Type DWord -Value 0 Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKCU:\System\GameConfigStore" -Name "GameDVR_Enabled" -Type DWord -Value 0 If (!(Test-Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\GameDVR")) { New-Item -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\GameDVR" | Out-Null } Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\GameDVR" -Name "AllowGameDVR" -Type DWord -Value 0
  You're welcome
  
  That's a ridiculous step by step guide. Let me see if I can simplify.
  Step 1: plugin your ventoy flash drive with Linux distro
  
  Every time I see PowerShell syntax, I have this dissonance where I feel like it should be better than Unix shells, its command are surely more descriptive, still... It disgusts me for some reason. Too long, maybe?
- Check out the debloat script. It can’t get rid of everything (like Edge) but it makes a HUGE difference.
  https://github.com/Raphire/Win11Debloat
  
  Thanks for the suggestion. It's my laptop from work, I have zero say in what software it runs, I don't even have admin rights on it. None of my personal stuff runs Windows. But it might help other people on their own machines.

I love being in EU

This is why when u pirate windows u always pirate the European version. Not that I condone pirating windows that would be immoral and wrong.
- uses Linux to pirate Windows
  deletes the iso because it sucks
  just because I could!
  
  I need windows for my cad program so I just run it in a vm
- Pirating windows and adobe is never wrong.
- Pirating Windows is wrong, but the lesser evil compared to buying Windows. Ideally, you shouldn't do either
- Windows 11 is freely available through official channels and only disables some personalization GUIs if you don’t activate. But you can still customize things without the GUI. There may be other gotchas to force you to pay up, but piracy isn’t even necessary.
  
  By piracy I mean modifying some registry keys to trick the free version into thinking its activated

The home of the brave, and the land of the free.

And again; repeat after me: install Linux already. Just get it over with, demand Linux work stations at work,use Linux for yourself and for the first time ever experience freedom on your computer
- I feel like this is one of those calls that get so repeatedly people get numbed.
  Something along the lines of climate change, economic crisis, etc.
  They are all true, but people are passivated.
  For real though; GET THE DAMN LINUX. SPIN IT UP IN A VM. TRY THE LIVE VERSION. DUAL BOOT IT WITH WINDOWS. YOU LOSE NOTHING, WINDOWS IS STILL THERE. JUST TRY IT FOR ONCE.
  It is painful to see people struggle with things that are easily solved.
  
  I lose Virtual Desktop for my wireless VR, 3ds Max and Solidworks for CAM. If all I did was gaming, media and browsing, I'd switch. Which is why my HTPC, only used for couch gaming and media, is running Bazzite.
  
  I ripped the bandaid off a month or so ago. Went with LMDE. Haven't looked back. Steam runs all my games through Proton just as good as they ran on Windows, if not better.

Am i missing something? If i had edge, store and bing forced down my throat my win11 install wouldve been long gone, but imo thst stuff was already removable before?
- From what I've gathered here and elsewhere they never really went full throttle on all that stuff for most of us here in the EU.
  Now don't get me wrong, W11 is utter shite, and I had to essentially build a new computer from scratch to even get it running properly, but I still haven't seen any ads or any other bullshit like that.
  This is exactly why my old computer is merrily running Mint, and it likes it.
  Edit: If it wasn't for the fact that I happen to primarily use Cinema 4D for work I wouldn't even have bothered, probably. Relearning 20+ years of software flow for the other options seemed silly at the time, but I would've reconsidered had I known what a mess W11 would become for me and in general.
  
  I think GDPR and related laws, really tempered what Microsoft did to the whole of the European region. They didn't want to deal with it, so they made as much as they could, opt-in. As opposed to the north american policies of either opt-out, or forced-on.
  IDK. I don't work at Microsoft, I'm just guessing. 🙃
  
  I love mint on my old laptop (which I'm using right now) I just wish it was more compatable with newer hardware as neither it nor ubuntu work properly on my new desktop build so I'm stuck on ghost spectre instead.

And local (offline) accounts when?
- Still using it that way.
  Hoops to jump through on fresh install but still possible afaik.

So being able to uninstall apps on your computer is news?
- No no, on Windows it is not your computer, it is "This computer". The days of "My computer" are long gone.

Microsoft: "Suck it, Americans"

IF YOU'RE NOT IN THE EU, you can use O&O ShutUp to help you turn off the more intrusive aspects of Windows with ease.
- Not to be pedantic, but this will work fine in Australia.
  There's no reason to say "If you're in the US". I think you mean "for everyone else" or "for those not in the EU".
  
  Not to be pedantic, but you're the second person to mention this. Maybe read the thread.
- If you're in the US,
  Is it US specific, or do you just mean if you're not in the EU?
  
  Well, really it's for any country that would allow MS to intrude into your PC experience as they do in the US.

🐧
- The only correct answer. Also too little too late for MS. Suck up a little bit of inconvenience to gain back your life with 🐧

I'm morbidly eager to see how they'll handle the Win 10 EoL (yeah, yeah, it ain't dyin', just not getting updated, same thing to me tbh) in October. I bet it'll be a shitshow.
- No more security patches. That should be dead to you if you don't want to host thousands of parasitic bots & malwares
  
  I'm convinced the whole "your computer will instantly turn into a botnet that cripples children's hospitals the moment you disable Windows Update" thing is part of Microsoft's internet propaganda.
  Like there are sysadmins for pretty big industries that schedule updates, sometimes once a month or even less frequently. Why aren't they worried about all the 0-day remote code execution exploits that supposedly exist every single day?

Wanted to play a game on my kid's computer that had windows 11 N or some shit. Couldn't play because it needed the "media pack", which in its turn installs everything N stands for. Clown world.

Too little too late? Some European businesses have already made the change to open source. Shit should be free to anyone doing business with it anyway.

Linux Gives Every User More Control: Uninstall Anything, and Say Goodbye to Microsoft

European Union users
Because the EU at least remotely cares about it's citizens.
Now let's try the USA! How much does the USA cares about it's citizens? Not all at the same time, please!
- Because the EU at least remotely cares about it's citizens.
  don't get over ambitious. EU is challenging all Western tech because they see the dangers of it running unopposed within the US government.
  don't believe for a minute that any government has your interests in mind when they create policy. you only have the illusion of support when your interests and the government interests align.
  
  True, but it seems like the EUs interests aligns with public interest a lot more often than it does in the U.S.
  Id trade for sure. As an American, I am conditioned to settle for the lesser of two evils.

So.. they’re doing exactly what apple was forced to do.

Windows users are a revenue stream, not customers. M$ views it's users as a sort of raw material that can be processed with dark patterns for ads and subscriptions. And like everything else, Americans are treated with the most disrespect and coercion.

I uninstalled edge from my MS PC could no longer use the standard Minecraft launcher due to missing dependencies

NICE

Get fucked Microshit!

IMHO modern personal computing is as bullshit as XV century tournament armor.
Something should be done.
- Install Linux
  
  I already use Linux and FreeBSD.

dont be fooled. stop supporting the enshittification now or be left behind. Bill Gates and the other american terrorists have caused enough harm.
you are in control once you stop using anything from american corpos.
stop supporting the enshittification!
- You do realize that Bill Gates hasn't been involved with MS for many years now, right?
  
  ofcourse. he already did more than enough. also steve jobs. we are all waiting for the google bros to vanish. hoping for the best.

THATS RIGHT MICROSOFT

Can they replace the file explorer?
i know you can replace explorer through the registry but I don’t know about uninstalling it

184 comments