Microsoft continues to work on Memories, the major commitment to AI that caused so much controversy for the Redmond giant that it had no choice but to delay its release make some changes to calm things down. This feature was very promising but raised too many privacy and security questions.

In case anyone is lost, I remind you that Memories is a Windows 11 exclusive feature (not coming to Windows 10) that uses artificial intelligence to perform proper monitoring of everything we do with our PC. You can take screenshots and create a database of several gigabytes that you can use later if we need to look up or restore something.

After this delay was confirmed, Memories remained in a sort of limbo, leading us to wonder what happened to this interesting feature. We didn’t have to wait long to find out, because this feature is already available on the Insider channel, and Microsoft knows how to play its cards very well with its implementation in Windows 11 24H2.

Microsoft has got it right with a new approach to Memories

The first integration of Memories in Windows 11 24H2 allowed us to enable or disable this feature. In theory, when we have it disabled, it shouldn’t do any type of monitoring of what we do with the computer, but the mere fact that this feature is still present is enough to generate doubt and mistrust.

Microsoft is aware of this and has decided to move forward with optional update KB5041865. This update allows us to completely uninstall Memories of Windows 11, as this feature has been integrated as an optional feature of Windows. I am confident that this change will be very well received and will help minimize security and privacy controversies.

With this measure, Microsoft has also made the feature more customizable to European regulations. Don’t forget that at the time it was also forced to allow the user to uninstall Windows 11 essentials like OneDrive, Microsoft Edge, and the Bing search engine.

Memories runs locally, uses the computer’s NPU to get the power its AI needs to function, and stores all data and captures locally, combining them with a single profile and encrypt them with Bitlocker. Microsoft has confirmed that this information and all content will not leave our computer, will not be accessed by anyone, and will not be shared for advertising purposes.