Microsoft is bringing new variants of Windows 11 and Windows 10 for the EU region, as the company announces here. The Redmond software company is reacting to the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) (you can read more about this in Finally: Slim Windows 11 without annoying Microsoft tools). With the DMA, the EU wants to regulate dominant companies, known as “gatekeepers”, and give their competitors easier access to the market. The EU defines Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft as such gatekeepers.
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You can remove Edge and Bing like any other program
Windows 11 and Windows 10 do not yet meet the requirements of the DMA, i.e. the Microsoft operating systems make it difficult for competing products to gain access to the market. Microsoft is now responding to this by changing both Windows systems so that users can uninstall both the pre-installed Edge browser and the Bing search function. This uninstallation is possible via the standard way in Windows Settings, which you can also use to remove any other software. So via “Settings, Apps, Installed Apps”. In the future you will be able to select Edge and Bing and have them removed.
More opportunities for competing programs
Microsoft also now offers third-party applications the ability to offer web search services through the search box on the Windows taskbar and to use any browser of their choice to display a search results page in the same manner as the Microsoft Bing web search application. Similarly, Windows allows developers to create third-party news feeds in the Windows Widgets panel like in Microsoft Edge.
No more general registration for all Microsoft services
Microsoft has also changed the login process for Windows. Previously, Windows automatically logged users in to other Microsoft products and services such as Edge, Bing, and the Microsoft “Start” service (e.g. News, Weather, etc.) when users log in to Windows for the first time. However, thanks to the DMA specifications, Windows will no longer automatically log users into these services.
More data protection
Microsoft has also made a number of changes to the way it handles data related to users’ use of Windows.
This is how you get the new Windows variants
All of the above changes apply only to the EU area. Microsoft has already started automatically installing these updates for Windows 10 and Windows 11 users. By the beginning of April 2024, all Windows 11 and Windows 10 users should have these new DMA-compliant Windows versions installed. If you want to use the new DMA-compliant Windows versions immediately, you must activate the “Get the latest updates as soon as they are available” function for Windows Update in the Settings menu.
