Windows 11’s Recall feature is already running on unsupported CPUs – and it shows why this is a bad idea
Windows 11 enthusiasts are already playing with the new – and controversial – Recall feature that the operating system is now in preview (for 24H2), and have been getting it running on current Arm-based CPUs by tinkering with things.
Although Recall is present in the recently released preview of the Windows 11 24H2 update, Microsoft makes it clear that the feature will not work on current PCs as it requires a Copilot+ PC (the new name for the ‘AI PC’) .
In other words, Recall needs a device with an NPU powerful enough to run it (and other new AI features in 24H2), which at the moment is just the new Snapdragon the row).
Even those Snapdragon laptops aren’t available yet (that will be next month), but leaker Albacore has still managed to tinker under the hood of Windows 11 24H2 and get Recall up and running with a current Arm processor.
Great progress made by enabling Recall on current Arm64 hardware, no luxury X Elite in sight! ✨Should theoretically work on Intel/AMD too, OEMs only received Arm64 specific ML model bundles so not much I can do yet. Here’s a little demo video with screenray 🪄 pic.twitter.com/w57fF1LxiNMay 23, 2024
You can see a video of Recall being invoked on a standard (non-Copilot+) Windows 11 PC in the above post on X (formerly Twitter). As Albacore says, it shows ‘screenray’ in action, which refers to the context-sensitive mode that’s entered when you find something with Recall and select it.
As you can see, if the desired search result is a text file, screenray offers options as to what to do: copy and paste text. Or if it’s an image, you’ll be given the choice to copy the image or open it for editing in an app.
Analysis: Works as not intended
It’s pretty cool to see this feature working on a processor without the necessary power in terms of a powerful NPU (like the new Snapdragon X Silicon Sports), but at the same time it illustrates why that NPU is needed. As you’ve probably noticed, the interaction with Recall and screenray in there looks a bit slow – what the NPU does is provide specific AI acceleration to make this process smoother.
Plus, the feature is still being tested in a preview build here, and that won’t help either.
In fact, Albacore sounds hopeful about making Recall work not only on current ARM chips, but also on existing AMD and Intel (x86) CPUs, which also can’t officially perform the function. (Then again, even the current generation of processors from Teams Red and Blue lack an NPU with enough raw grunt).
If that happens, we can expect a similar experience to what we see here – but that’s not possible yet anyway, as Microsoft has only supplied the machine learning model bundles for Arm to laptop makers. These don’t exist yet for AMD or Intel CPUs (because they’re not needed – Lunar Lake and Strix Point, which will power Copilot+ PCs, are still a long way from launch, but they’re expected to be available before the end of will debut in 2024).
Ultimately, this is an interesting idea for now, but it’s probably a bad idea to try to get Recall to work on a PC it’s not intended for. Simply because there can be scenarios where it really crashes – for example when you have a larger, expansive library of snapshots stacked up – and there are undoubtedly good reasons why Microsoft introduced the mentioned NPU requirement.
Mind you, not everyone wants Recall anyway: especially not those more privacy-conscious Windows 11 users who have already made their feelings clear. A privacy watchdog in Great Britain is investigating Recall even before Microsoft has the functionality officially live. The outcome of that research will certainly be interesting, and Microsoft may be concerned about another scenario where a major Windows 11 feature is blocked in Europe due to stricter data regulations.