> Instead of letting an agent act directly as you, Windows spins up this extra workspace, gives it limited access (like specific folders such as Documents or Desktop), and keeps its actions isolated and auditable.
> Each agent can have its own workspace and access rules, so what one agent can see or do doesn’t automatically apply to others, and you stay in control of what they’re allowed to touch.
This actually sounds thoughtful. I know it's super popular to crap on MS about AI since the Windows Recall feature, but at this point it just seems like intentional bad faith. This feature here is something you'd have to turn on, anyway.
I disagree. Maybe certain sensitive things are outside that folder such as browser cookies, but most users have a LOT of sensitive stuff there. "Tax forms 2023.pdf" for instance.
It's similar to UAC - a good and important protection, but fundamentally if you're letting code run with access to your plain old non-administrator documents that's where the biggest data threats are.
Interesting that you see the sheer amount of criticism, week after week, and assume it must be bad faith by microsoft critics rather than bad faith by microsoft.
Are you kidding? This is pure theft. If I got into your computer and accessed your Documents and Desktop, I'd be in jail but its OK when Microsoft does it.
>For example, if you ask ChatGPT’s Agent to book a travel, it’ll open Chromium on Linux in an Azure container, search the query, visit different websites, navigate each page and book a flight ticket using your saved credentials. An AI Agent tries to mimic a human, and it can perform tasks on your behalf while you sit back and relax.
Big tech has repeatedly shown that they are not good stewards of end users' privacy and agency. You'd have to have been born yesterday to believe they'd build AI systems that truly serve the user's best interests like this.
Mmh, I've always wanted my gaming PC to run a useless background agent to eat up CPU cycles that could have been used for my game. Oh well, if I didn't want that, I could just consider using a Steam Machine, which Valve just announced.
Imo if you just have a regular desktop PC, use Ubuntu/Fedora, not a dedicated 'gaming' distro. Bazzite's good as a stand in for steam os on non Valve handhelds, but Steam and Proton work just fine on a regular boring Linux distro.
Bazzite is a lot less messing around though. Stock standard fedora doesn't have the drivers needed for modern xbox controllers. Doesn't have a controller usable interface, etc.
If your PC is connected to a TV than Bazzite is a much better experience.
I mostly agree, with the caveat the Bazzite is also a good option for PCs that spend their life permanently connected to a TV as a gaming box. It makes for a great big screen sofa experience too vs using typical Linux distro desktop UIs or Windows. Roll your own Steam Machine, essentially.
> Mmh, I've always wanted my gaming PC to run a useless background agent to eat up CPU cycles that could have been used for my game.
Wasn't that the whole point of Windows Update? To accustom us to have something burning 100% CPU all the time instead of the task you actually want to do?
I don't want this feature. I have LaTeX documents on my computer containing my personal thoughts. Some of them I want to keep to myself. And some of them contain my own ideas that I find embarrassing. I don't want to hand those documents over to Microsoft servers, nor do I want them used for AI training. I want them to know that these deeply personal thoughts are mine.
This is the reason that no longer sync my notes or journals from my Linux devices to my last Windows install on my desktop. I dual boot Linux on it as well and I encrypt the Linux disk so that windows can't scan the files on it just in case for the rare occasions I boot into Windows to access a program that isn't available on Linux.
I know there will be some smart arse out there saying "Just install Linux"
Pleas don't I have to use a screenreader called NVDA to read the screen to me as I am blind.
There is a screen reader in Linux but it just is not that good. If it was better then I would think about it. I have tried!
This is the most critical comment in the entire thread.
Your point about NVDA vs. Linux screen readers isn't a side issue; it's the entire crux of the problem.
The "Just install Linux" crowd ignores the reality of ecosystem lock-in. For millions of users with specific, mission-critical needs (like robust accessibility, Adobe Suite, enterprise compliance), there is no viable alternative to Windows.
This isn't a failure of users for not switching. It's a failure of the market that has produced a monoculture.
Microsoft knows this. They are not competing for your data; they are leveraging a monopoly. This isn't a 'choice' to accept an AI agent; it's a monopoly tax on a captive audience.
Part your point about enterprise and mission critical software is that Microsoft is well aware of their biggest customers. Whatever agentic bloatware they will be adding here, it will absolutely be configurable via group policy.
Why do they do this? Is HN such a worthwhile target for astroturfing that people farm reputation with AI comments? And if so, why not add some instruction to get rid of that obnoxious style?
HN readers are, as an average, high on technical know-how and bad at social skills and reading the room. What you're seeing is the natural outcome of that.
Just don't opt in to this then? Nobody is forcing you, to go to the settings app, go to AI settings, go to experimental settings, and manually turn this on.
It's a real pain that accessibility features are always integrated into proprietary OSes first. Like the live captioning feature in Windows 11 (for the hearing impaired), it wouldn't be hard to implement it on Linux with Whisper, but it still hasn't been done.
>Agent workspace is a separate,
contained Windows session made
just for AI agents, where they get
their own account, desktop, and
permissions so they can click, type,
open apps, and work on your files in the background while you keep
using your normal desktop. Instead of letting an agent act
directly as you, Windows spins up
this extra workspace, gives it limited
access (like specific folders such as
Documents or Desktop), and keeps
its actions isolated and auditable. Each agent can have its own
workspace and access rules, so
what one agent can see or do
doesn’t automatically apply to
others, and you stay in control of
what they’re allowed to touch.
The headline is very clickbaity. This is not quite the privacy destroying anti feature CPU eater. It's more like a feature some people may enjoy and others an annoying nuisance that they have to remember to disable. It's likely going to be so resource heavy and a privacy concern that i can't imagine they would ever enable it by default.
If they realize the value of "sandboxing" something so insecure they should also be making it really easy for you to do the same with any app, or set of apps...
That Simpsons meme with Principal Skinner where it's like "Could it be that going against the user on every single step and every single product isn't good for the longterm health of my company? No. It's the users who are out of touch."
With every single tech company, these days
If there was accountability these people might be in jail
but what i dont understand is if windows is such a disaster with their privacy policies, why would you trust their built in firewall to stop them? its all about trust.
Because fiddling with Windows firewall settings is a power user feature that only a fraction of a percent of users will touch. If it ever becomes more widely used, then I agree, all bets are off.
> Each agent can have its own workspace and access rules, so what one agent can see or do doesn’t automatically apply to others, and you stay in control of what they’re allowed to touch.
This actually sounds thoughtful. I know it's super popular to crap on MS about AI since the Windows Recall feature, but at this point it just seems like intentional bad faith. This feature here is something you'd have to turn on, anyway.
reply