A Windows enthusiast known as Albacore has developed Amperage, an app that is extending the new Windows 11 Recall functionality to x86 processors by Intel and AMD.
Windows Recall is a new feature for Copilot+ PCs that captures snapshots of user activity to enable the system to remember and restore tasks and actions. It is officially only available for Arm64 CPUs, including Qualcomm Snapdragon, Microsoft SQ, and Ampere chipsets.
As was revealed last week by Albacore, Windows Recall also works on older devices with a Snapdragon 7cx processor and 4GB of RAM, lacking a Neural Processing Unit (NPU). Now Albacore has shown that it also works on x86/x64 based systems.
Looking to try the new Recall feature coming to Windows 11? Now you can! ✨
I got the opportunity to write about the journey of getting Recall to work on unsupported hardware for @tomshardware. You can check it out here 😊https://t.co/clpHrXzyMT— Albacore ☁️ (@thebookisclosed) May 31, 2024
How to Install and Requirements
You can try out Amperage by following the instructions on the project´s GitHub page. You will need Windows 11 version 24H2 build 26100.712 to run the Amperage app. The installation involves downloading the latest version of Amperage from GitHub, along with AI Components for Arm64. The you have to unpack these files into the correct directory and run the installation command through Command Prompt with administrator rights.
Being a new third-party application, Amperage will surely contain bugs, so installing it on your main PC is not a good idea. For a more stable experience, you should consider waiting for official Microsoft support, which is expected later this year.
Future for x86 Users
Microsoft is expected to release AI Components for x86_64 users later this year. However, those willing to experiment can emulate Arm64 Windows on their x86_64 systems using Azure ARM VMs with a 24H2 image.
Privacy Concerns and User Control
Windows Recall, which periodically captures screenshots of the screen, has raised privacy concerns. Microsoft has clarified that all processing is done on-device, and no data is transmitted externally. Users will have the option to specify which applications should not be captured or can choose to disable the feature entirely.
However, if threat actors gain local access to a device, they could potentially access this data or transfer it to their own computers to analyze the information offline for sensitive data.
Mozilla's Chief Product Officer, Steve Teixeira, shared his concerns about the feature, noting that it stores browser history and user-typed data with minimal control over what gets saved. He emphasized that while the data is encrypted, it introduces a new attack vector for cybercriminals and raises privacy issues for shared computers. Teixeira also criticized Microsoft for favoring its own Edge browser by allowing it to block specific websites and private browsing activity from Recall.
Recall is slated to be included in the upcoming Windows 11 version 24H2, which is currently available for public testing in the Release Preview Channel.
Last Updated on June 3, 2024 1:29 pm CEST
