Microsoft gives Windows users more freedom according to European rules
November 17, 2023
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It will soon be easier to customize Windows to your liking. Microsoft is revamping its operating system to please European politicians. In March next year, the gatekeepers appointed
It will soon be easier to customize Windows to your liking. Microsoft is revamping its operating system to please European politicians.
In March next year, the gatekeepers appointed to the Digital Markets Act will have to start complying with new, stricter rules. Microsoft is one of them and will make many changes to Windows to be OK by then. The company has therefore released a preview update of Windows 11, version 23H2. You will gradually find these changes in the coming weeks as build 22631.2787 in the release preview of the Insider channel.
Why
Some of the possible changes go quite far for Microsoft. Users can customize many things and even delete them. The latter is certainly a striking measure given the intrusiveness that the company sometimes dares to show with regard to its products.
Under the DMA, major tech companies must allow users to easily uninstall automatically installed apps if they wish. The standard settings of many systems also need to be easily customizable. A number of gatekeeper services also need to be more accessible to third, smaller parties.
Changes
It seems that Microsoft is taking these new rules seriously. For example, it becomes clearer what the difference is between apps and necessary OS functions. You can make this distinction easier in the settings, using the search function or under Start. You can also more easily control which browser you open a link in, for example with widgets.
Here are some things users can completely remove in Windows:
Microsoft Edge browser
Camera app
Cortana (which has less support)
Photos app
Web search from Microsoft Bing (and replace with a search engine of your choice)
These changes apply only to the European Economic Area. For example, residents of countries that have a Brexit cannot benefit from this.
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