Microsoft is starting to integrate AI shortcuts, or what it calls AI actions, into the File Explorer in Windows 11. These shortcuts let you right-click on a file and quickly get to Windows AI features like blurring the background of a photo, erasing objects, or even summarizing content from Office files.
Four image actions are currently being tested in the latest Dev Channel builds of Windows 11, including Bing visual search to find similar images on the web, the blur background and erase objects features found in the Photos app, and the remove background option in Paint.
Sounds great but AI so Lemmings will hate it.
So lemmings = people who want to maintain full control of their PC rather than relinquishing various tasks to a fancy auto-complete?
What control are these features relinquishing?
And you’d be correct. I don’t need or want any of that crap on my personal machine.
You don’t want to be able to easily edit photos on your personal machine?
You don’t want to be able to do a reverse image search right from explorer?
And you’re against people having the option to do these things……why?
You don’t want to be able to easily edit photos on your personal machine?
That’s called MS Paint. It already exists.
You don’t want to be able to do a reverse image search right from explorer?
No! Why would I want more shit calling back to the mothership about my files on my personal computer?
And you’re against people having the option to do these things……why?
When did I ever say that?
MS Paint doesn’t give you advanced features like background blurring/removal and object removal.
Why would I want more shit calling back to the mothership
They’re not “calling back to the mothership”. Why do you think they are?
When did I ever say that?
By being against them adding these features.
MS Paint doesn’t give you advanced features like background blurring/removal and object removal.
Nor should it. It’s fucking MS PAINT, not Photoshop. If you want advanced features, use something more advanced. Adding shit to MS Paint when it’s gone virtually unchanged for decades without complaint is unnecessary feature creep.
They’re not “calling back to the mothership”. Why do you think they are?
LMAO
By being against them adding these features.
You understand the terms “opt-in” and “opt-out”, yes?
Pretty sure it’s opt in? So… don’t use it?
If it ran with local model(s), as in, ran on your PC entirely, I would have no problem with this.
As long as the feature could be disabled as well
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It does appear to be local.
If Linux was more compatible with a lot of programs/games there would be absolutely no reason to install windows ever again
Wine or Proton will make just bout anything you run on windows run.
I’m not missing anything, even games run fine with Wine/Proton. Also, a lot of the Linux games a really fun! (I personally enjoy Xonotic and SuperTuxKart. I also like to play custom roms with mgba) The only thing I’m missing is pretty much ONE really niche network program thing which didn’t have a Linux version. Everything else either has a Linux version, is a Windows game that can be run with Wine, or has some Linux alternative (think inkscape, kdenlive, okular)
Yeah but having to use third party software to run games is annoying and it’s probably buggy and you more than likely get errors
I mainly play WoW and I doubt that’ll run effectively.
Just looking up online how to install it already looks tedious.
Just get lutris and I expect it works just fine. Worked fine for overwatch, so i expect WoW too.
But you’re right, launchers are usually the biggest issue when its comes to compatibility. Especially that completely useless piece of shit Rockstar peddles.
What networking program? If it’s not some proprietary protocol I bet there is a Linux tool that does it.
A VPN. I couldn’t get V2rayA (the vpn uses v2ray, there’s a win + mac app for that specific vpn but not linux) to work. I might have to have another crack at it soon…
I don’t understand why a VPN needs special software to work honestly but I guess that’s valid. It’s likely it would “work” in wine but idk if it will be able to do what it needs to.
not special software, but it has an app that lets you log in on win and mac. On Linux, I was able to log in and see all the servers but when I set it as proxy it didn’t work :( I might try again later
I installed Zorin a couple of months ago and I’ve had no issue playing any game that I’ve wanted or any game already in my Steam library. I was warned that “there might be problems using Linux” but it literally works better than when I had W11
I finally switched to full-time Linux last year and I haven’t missed anything. The only stuff that doesn’t work (and doesn’t have a good alternative) are games with invasive anti-cheat that I wanted to boycott anyway.
Most is the anti cheat games are not working on Windows either. They only give you some dubious error message.
I’ll just go by protondb.com and most what I want to play is either gold or platinum rated, or even native.
I only have 106 games in my library, and out of those 66 are native, 43 are gold or platinum and 1 is unrated. I’ve bought nearly all of then before even switching from Windows to Linux about nine months ago.
Using arch btw.
Proton is so good that often games run better with Proton than native too. Usually because the developer puts little effort in the linux native version. Proton is such a godsend.
Linux is compatible with a lot more than it used to be, and for those stubborn programs, there are usually FOSS alternatives, or emulation/compatibility layers. Hell, my machine runs games faster through Proton on Linux in 1440p than it did natively on Windows in 1080p.
Well, you either switch and learn to use compatible software or you can keep complaining about enshittification for the rest of your life.
“Users throw windows in trash and install linux” - new headline
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Yep I only have windows for pubg and vr…I really hope vr on linux gets some more advances cuz I do enjoy it
No one asked for this.
Some senior exec at Microsoft asked for this.
He didn’t ask.
Took the words right out of my mouth.
He could not find back his porn and needs AI so he can ask to find the right clip?
Windows 11 doesn’t even have a working file manager or text editor anymore. This is not a serious operating system.
There’s no need to be hyperbolic. I’m happy with my decision to de-Windows as much as I can (which still isn’t 100%, btw) but this assertion is just ridiculous.
I literally cannot use a program that has AI crap integrated into it, because of data security rules in the contracts I have to follow. If I used Windows 11, I would have to never use Notepad, and find a way to remove Explorer. (Explorer creates the desktop icons and taskbar, so good luck with that.)
Cool, so that’s a specific problem with your needed use case. That’s not what you said before.
It has both out of the box. I just returned a brand new laptop with it on it.
Win 11 is bad enough, there’s no need to make up things.
elaborate on that
Narrator:
They couldn’t.
Notepad and WFE get thrown off hell in a cell into an announcer’s table by Kate and Dolphin, respectively, but to say they “don’t work” is intellectually lazy and dishonest.
Who are you trying to convince right now? Linux and macOS users are probably never going back to Windows if they can help it, and Windows users will correctly say “but it’s right there; I’m using it right now”.
Are you ever going to elaborate on this lie?
FreeCommander XE is pretty cool, I suggest it
Dear baby jesus. If I weren’t a Linux user I’d scream to stop all of this AI stuffing
Then again, I’m a Linux user and I’m just laughing.
Join Linux, come to the dark side, we got cookies
You know it’s funny that Microsoft took this feature from Apple from macOS. But here’s the thing right? This shit requires a super computer npu to run and meanwhile my 2012 MacBook Pro with a core i5 3rd gen running opencore legacy patcher can just do this stuff in the exact same way. For the features one would actually wanna use this for.
Was arranging a completely unrelated service with a client today and apropos of absolutely nothing he went full jaw-foamingly off his tits about how shite win11 was.
They’re better make it so the context menu doesn’t take 2s to fully load while moving the bottom rows around first.
Bitch, every valid action for a file is in the diving registry, sorted by file type. Why do you need to think about this?
Article doesn’t state this but I assume this is done via Copilot, so anything you use it on goes direct to Microsoft cloud, right?
I don’t think so. It says it’s part of file explorer, so that would be part of the overall system, right?
I 100% expect so. It’s much easier and cheaper to do it this way and also gives them data to train copilot further
I might be wrong, though
I wouldn’t bet on it.
Just because the UI exists in file explorer doesn’t mean the data processing is happening locally. It’s likely happening on MS’s cloud. Maybe some actions happening locally on new machines with NPU chips
I want to believe you, but I’ve been burned before.
I’m not sure what you mean. I’m saying that this work is almost for sure being sent to Microsoft’s servers, which is certainly a bad thing. That is burning anyone who uses it
I thought you meant they wouldn’t be processing your files locally. You’re saying they’re taking all of your local files and sending them to the cloud though?
Likely in pretty much every case they are taking files that you perform an AI function on and uploading them to their cloud.
I said the few exceptions might be very low effort work that could run on the new NPU chips coming with some PCs. But I doubt they would event do that because it’s passing up the opportunity to use consumer data to train their models.
So yes, if you use an AI feature, MS is taking your file(s) and training it’s models on it
Some Copilot functions are done locally on some computers with the appropriate NPU chips. But it’s Microsoft, so they’ll be sending data home either way.
Yes, but them not calling it out in the article makes me thing this is not the case here. If it would be done locally, it would not be as bad. But I somehow doubt it would be.
Obligatory “learn to use your computer and install another OS” post. You’ll probably find that your computer becomes MORE useful, not less.
I’m having the best time computing on linux again. It had been about 10 years since I last had it since I kind of just forgot about it or thought it wouldn’t fit my needs. I hardly boot to my windows drive now except to play pubg.
Most people don’t realize how slow Windows is. When you try something else, you realize how much time you have been spending just waiting for Windows to do things. Our computers can be a lot faster than Windows lets them be.
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A couple of weeks ago I rebooted into Windows for the first time in well over 8 months, as I needed to use a piece of software I don’t have on Linux (it’s available, I’m just refusing to pay for it and no alternative method has materialised), and getting anything done was incredibly frustrating.
First everything had to update, and I was forced to log in to a bunch of stuff. My web browser spontaneously vanished, as did Discord. No idea why. Opening Explorer consistently took several seconds because it always decided to poll my external drive before displaying anything, even if I didn’t do shit in my external drive.
Explorer being slow applies on my work PC too, and I have to use Windows on that. Every day I wonder how it’d be to put Linux on it.
Nautilus just opens the moment I click on it. Always.
This feels weird. Everything will want to update on any system if you’ve not had it online for 6 months. And the majority of the login requests are going to be your previous credentials being invalidated because they’ve been offline for so long. You’d see similar behavior on Linux.
Applications vanishing isn’t really something that happens on any OS really so I do have to question what you did to cause it. Uninstallers don’t just silently pop off at random. I’ve not even heard anecdotal tellings of that happening previously.
I’ll agree with you on Explorer though. It’s slow as molasses, and I hate utilizing it whenever I have to. It just feels bad.
I guess my point is, complain about Windows itself, and things directly tied into Windows. When you pull out “software I didn’t start for six months wants to update” as your first complaint it doesn’t really help your argument.
When you pull out “software I didn’t start for six months wants to update”
Did the software “want” to update or “force” an update? There’s a meaningful difference there and windows often doesn’t give you a choice or do anything else while it’s updating.
“Everything” implies much more than the OS and related Windows updates.
And honestly, Windows forcing updates is a good thing, as has been said time and again. Do you recall the days of Windows XP, where so so many machines were sitting on relatively ancient versions, and exposed to a huge number of vulnerabilities? That is what lead to the current update situation.
And to those that argue that users should be able to manage their own updates, there are numerous ways for a power user to do just that. But the bar for entry is “high” (no UI) to prevent normal end users who will never actually manage their updates from turning them off.
I have had Windows corrupt a hard drive because it forced an update that exceeded the available storage.
If they only forced security updates by default, I would agree with you. But they don’t.
O.o how long ago was this? I literally just had an issue on a VM where Windows 11 refused to update due to disk space constraints.
This is my personal machine that I own, there is no reason for my operating system to “hide” options from me. If I want to never update my system or delete core operating files that’s my fucking problem to deal with.
You know what else windows hides from normal users? How to disable information tracking, ads, and this AI bullshit.
The big difference is that updates in Linux happen in the background and aren’t very intrusive. Your hard drive will be used here and there as it unpacks packages but the difference between say, apt, and Windows update is stark. Windows update slows everything down quite a lot.
I recently swapped my Dad’s Windows computer with my old machine, which I installed Linux on ahead of time.
I told him it was a faster machine - which it was just slightly in the hardware sense, a very minor upgrade. A half-truth to encourage the transition.
But of course, it’s running Linux, not Windows.
Next day he phones me up really happy that it’s “so much faster than the old machine!”
And it really is a lot faster, but it’s not the hardware. It’s just not getting bogged down with all the crap Windows constantly does in the background.
Either way, mission accomplished.
Enjoy…Oh wait I have to fix these
this is going to cause so much data loss…
