TL;DR:

The Windows File Explorer is now dependent on Microsoft Recall being installed on Windows 11 24H2 editions and likely later.

This means that if you wish to use newer versions of the Window file explorer, you have to install recall on your system. Recall is a deeply-rooted, non-negotiable feature on all modern versions of Windows.

Solution

If you wish to strip out recall from your system, you are no longer able to use the built-in graphical file explorer and must use a third-party tool, and if you're not allowed to do that on the machine, then you are forced to have recall running on the system as it doesn't appear on any graphical settings pages.

The other solution is to prepare for transitioning into a free operating system such as GNU/Linux with distributions such as Linux Mint which is designed specifically for that transition. You can also run an older version of Windows and refuse to update.

Errata

Turns out that this issue has been exaggerated and that there are ways to disable co-pilot on Windows machines (or at the very least, command Windows to do so). Also it's debatable whether this program does any harm on non "copilot" computers but you can be the judge of that.

  • Frank [he/him, he/him]
    ·
    1 month ago

    That's what I was struggling with. Apparently I needed some kind of encryption key to pull from git as they no longer allow you to use your password? I hit that like a brick wall and couldn't get past it.

    • sawne128 [he/him]
      ·
      1 month ago

      On GitHub I think you can just click "Code" and "Download ZIP" in a web browser.

    • rtstragedy [fae/faer, she/her]
      ·
      edit-2
      1 month ago

      i think this happens if you try to clone with SSH instead of https, which requires an SSH key to be configured in your github account. Pretty sure I can checkout code using https without even logging in bit its been a couple weeks (I refuse to log into Github)

      When you click the clone or download button or whatever its called in Github make sure HTTPS is selected, probdbly would help

      • sawne128 [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        1 month ago

        I used to have that same problem, and I think that was with https. Like if you type git clone https://github.com/torvalds/linux.git that's using https, right?

        Edit: It was probably with SSH, but damn it, if I type what the tutorial says it should just work.