Windows 11’s new recall feature has been cracked to run on unsupported hardware

Microsoft unveiled it New Copilot Plus PC last weekDesigned to bring a new wave of AI features to Windows that are exclusive to the new laptops. Now, less than two weeks later, Windows enthusiasts have managed to crack Microsoft’s flagship AI-powered recall feature To play on unsupported hardware.

Recall leverages local AI models on the new Copilot Plus PC to run in the background and take snapshots of anything you’ve done or seen on your PC. You then get a timeline you can look at and the ability to search for photos, documents, conversations, or anything else on your PC. Microsoft has touted Recall as requiring the latest neural processing units (NPUs) on new PCs, but you can actually run it on older Arm-powered hardware.

Windows Watcher Albacore created a device called AmpereWhich enables the recall on devices with older Qualcomm Snapdragon chips, Microsoft’s SQ processors, or Ampere chipsets. You need to install the latest Windows 11 24H2 update on one of these Windows on Arm devices, and then the tool will unlock and enable the recall.

It only works on older Windows on Arm hardware right now, but given that Copilot Plus PCs are coming soon from AMD and Intel, we’ll likely see it unlocked more widely in the coming weeks or months. Microsoft has only published its AI components for the Windows on Arm platform right now, which is a limiting factor in running it on Intel- and AMD-powered hardware.

You can technically unlock Recall on an x86 device, but the app won’t do much until Microsoft publishes the x64 AI components needed to run it. Rumors suggest that both AMD and Intel are close to announcing Copilot Plus PCs, so Microsoft’s AI components for those machines could appear soon. I managed to run Recall on an x64 Windows 11 virtual machine this morning to test the initial first-run experience.

We could soon see most of Microsoft’s Copilot Plus PC features on existing hardware as well. Being unlocked to run on older Arm hardware will undoubtedly raise questions about why Microsoft is restricting this and many other AI-powered Windows features to just newer devices that have NPUs capable of over 40 trillion operations per second (TOPS).

Microsoft will probably argue that the 40 TOPS requirement sets a baseline for future AI-powered experiences beyond Recall, Image Cocreator, and the other AI features Microsoft demonstrated last week. It also ensures that these features are running on a separate NPU, rather than occupying the CPU and GPU and draining the laptop’s battery life. But the reality is that Copilot Plus PCs are also designed to sell new hardware for Microsoft and its OEM partners at a time when IDC Estimates PC sales will increase this year due to the advent of AI-enabled PCs.