Will the Windows I Want Only Be Available in the EEA? (Premium)

It looks like the Windows 11 I want, and the Windows 11 we all deserve, will only be made available to Microsoft customers in the European Economic Area (EEA). This is unjust on every level, but it also indicates how easily Microsoft could change Windows to be less terrible but won’t unless forced to by regulators.

I’m sure you’ve seen the news: Microsoft is making sweeping changes to how Windows 11 works thanks to its new legal requirements as a gatekeeper in the EU. Some of the changes, which I detail below, were telegraphed in the Windows Insider Program, and now make a bit more sense in context. But some are new, and the collective set of changes goes a long way towards addressing many of the key complaints that I and others have about Windows 11. Not all the way. But still meaningful.

There is a caveat, of course: Microsoft will only make these changes in the EEA. And there is no way to sugarcoat this: It sucks. Plain and simple.

But as with the information I provided in The Enshittification of OneDrive Escalates Yet Again, But Help is On the Way (Premium), there may be a silver lining here: Because the changes Microsoft is making to Windows 11 will be included in the Setup image it will use worldwide, those of us outside the EEA will almost certainly be able to work around Microsoft’s terribleness and take advantage of this more user- and privacy-friendly Windows. Via third-party utilities, various hacks, whatever. It will happen.

But we shouldn’t have to rely on that kind of nonsense. This is just what Windows should be. Well, this and some other changes that Microsoft isn’t making. But these changes constitute a massive step forward in de-enshittifying Windows 11 and offsetting years of confusion and consternation.

So what are these changes? And how will they impact Windows and its users?

For now, I am relying on the descriptions provided by an unattributed post to the Windows Insider Blog, which I think we can all agree isn’t exactly authoritative or clearly written on the best of days. When I get home, I will install the new Release Preview build with which I can experience the changes first-hand, and I suspect that will provide additional clarity.

Understanding the requirements of the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) helps, too, of course. At a high level, the DMA is about preventing Big Tech firms like Microsoft from abusing their dominance using platforms, like Windows, that are considered “gatekeepers.” But we need to get more specific than that: What exactly does the DMA require Microsoft to change in Windows to comply with its rules?

Those familiar with Microsoft’s antitrust history will understand the motivation behind the first requirement, which is that Microsoft must allow users to uninstall pre-installed apps (what we call “in-box” apps now in Microsoft-land) from the operating system. This rule was of course inspired by the EU requiring Microsoft to let users uninstall Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, and other so-called middleware apps from Windows two decades ago.

This requirement obviously explains Microsoft’s quiet push this past year to let users uninstall more and more in-box apps in Windows 11. And the newly-announced ability, in the EEA only, to uninstall Microsoft Edge and Bing Search (from Search).

Less obviously, I think it also explains the sudden deprecation of several in-box apps like Tips, most recently, but also Maps and Movies & TV and others. Think about it: These are apps that Microsoft isn’t actively developing, and while leaving them in the OS wouldn’t hurt anybody, this DMA requirement means that Microsoft would have to do work to make them compliant. So it’s just removing them instead, and users who want them can get them in the Store.

The DMA also requires Microsoft to allow third-party developers to interoperate with the gatekeeper OS in ways that Microsoft’s own apps and services do. In this way, users can choose to use different apps and services than those provided (bundled) by the OS maker.

Windows 11 runs afoul of this requirement in multiple ways, and these behaviors are key among the complaints that I alluded to above. For example, while Microsoft belatedly made it (sort of) easy to make a different web browser the default, it also ignores the user’s preferences by launching Microsoft Edge in certain conditions, like when you open a story in Widgets or a link in Search highlights, instead of the browser the user explicitly downloaded and configured to be the default.

In addressing this concern, the Insider post gets into a bit of marketing blather, claiming that “Windows is an open platform,” as if the connection capabilities it then discusses weren’t forced on it by regulators. No matter: Third-party developers can now integrate into their core Windows chokepoints that were previously used to abuse users and funnel them into Microsoft’s products and services.

First up is Widgets, where third-party developers can now replace the horrifically bad MSN Start news feed with their own. (And, if the provided faux screenshot is correct, just turn off the news feed altogether, a change that Microsoft said was coming and would make Widgets actually useful to me and others.)

Next is the file system, where third-party developers can now replace OneDrive integration with their own cloud storage service while using the same placeholder files (Files on Demand) feature as the Microsoft offering.

And then there’s Search, where third-party developers can now replace Bing (and thus Search highlights) with their own search services.

These are major changes that will dramatically improve the Windows 11 user experience for those users who don’t want to use Microsoft’s inferior, privacy-invading services (especially in the case of Widgets and Search, which are both crimes against humanity).

This DMA requirement also impacts the Default apps functionality in Windows 11, which has always been problematic compared to previous Windows versions. Here, Microsoft doesn’t engage in marketing blather, it stretches the bounds of credulity by claiming that users can “easily configure app defaults” in Windows 11 when in fact this interface is so obtuse that most would likely just give up.

“In the EEA, Windows will always use customers’ configured app default settings for link and file types, including industry standard browser link types (http, https),” Microsoft notes. In other words, in the rest of the world, Windows 11 will still trigger Microsoft Edge in some conditions but in the EEA, Windows 11 will finally respect the user’s default browser choice. But only sort of: “Apps choose how to open content on Windows, and some Microsoft apps will choose to open web content in Microsoft Edge.”

Apps … choose. Here, we are getting into a bit of semantics: Windows 11 will not choose Edge for you, but some Microsoft apps, including those preinstalled in Windows 11, I assume, will still force you to use Edge. Does that mean that clicking links in Search highlights or Widgets will still launch Edge?

It might. Microsoft is also explicitly drawing some distinction between so-called system components in Windows—i.e. things that are part of the OS—and apps, which are just things that run on top of the OS. (We explored this confusing and seemingly pointless distinction in The Mysterious Case of the Windows 11 23H2 System Components (Premium) if you need a refresher.) And if you look at the System Components section of Settings, you’ll see that only Game Bar, Get Help, Microsoft Store, Phone Link, Tips (now deprecated), and Windows Security are considered system components. Search highlights and Widgets are not listed.

Microsoft discusses this topic in the blog post I keep referencing, noting that OS functionality and apps are separate, and that “all apps in Windows can (now) be uninstalled.” But it doesn’t address the question I raised above. So testing of actual code is required before we can start debating whether Microsoft is trying to subvert the DMA here. I suspect they are. (And am curious what might happen if a user uninstalls Edge and then clicks a link in Widgets. We’ll see.)

The DMA also requires Microsoft to get the user’s permission before syncing their Microsoft account (MSA) data with Windows. And while it is natural to wonder if that means Microsoft will once again allow users to (easily) sign in to Windows with a local (offline) account, that does not appear to be the case. Instead, the MSA requirement remains and users in the EEA will simply be given the choice to sync or not sync, the latter of which gives all the obvious advantages, including those exposed by the new Windows Backup app.

On this, I have little in the way of opinion: We can already bypass (or workaround) the MSA requirement if needed, and this “change,” such as it is, appears to be a minor concession to privacy that has little in the way of real-world impact. It feels like lip service.

The Windows Insider blog post concludes with a discussion about “EEA PCs,” and unlike the rest of the post, it provides a glimmer of hope to those who live in the rest of the world.

“As noted above, some functionality is only available in the EEA,” it reads (inaccurately: I believe all of the changes this post discusses are EEA-only). “Windows uses the region chosen by the customer during device setup to identify if the PC is in the EEA. Once chosen in device setup, the region used for DMA compliance can only be changed by resetting the PC.”

So that is interesting. It’s possible that a user in the US, perhaps, could configure the PC for an EEA region during Setup and then change it back to the correct setting once they reach the Desktop: All of the regional settings, save those impacted by the DMA, should change to the correct region.

Or maybe not. Again, we need to see how this really works before we can celebrate or complain anew. So that’s the next step.

See you on the other side.