As part of Microsoft’s ongoing commitment to compliance with the Digital Markets Act, we are making the following changes to Windows 10, Windows 11, and Microsoft apps in the European Economic Area (EEA). We’ll update this post as these changes are shipped, first in Windows Insider builds and then in retail builds.
↫ Windows Insider Program Team
It’s time for more changes to make Windows suck just a little bit less, but only for those of us who live in the European Economic Area (the EU plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway), courtesy of basic consumer protection laws like the Digital Markets Act. Windows users in other parts of the world will not get these changes, so if you don’t live in the EU/EEA, feel free to look away to remain blissfully ignorant.
In the EU/EEA, Edge will no longer bug you to be set as the default browser, unless you actually open Edge. In addition, other Microsoft applications won’t bug you to install Edge if you’ve removed it from your system. Setting a browser as default will now also register more filetypes. Whereas in other parts of the world setting, say, Firefox as your default browser in Windows will only register it as the default for http, https, .htm, and .html, it will register the following additional defaults: ftp, read, .mht, .mhtml, .shtml, .svg, .xht, .xhtml, and .xml.
Users in the EU/EEA can now also remove the Microsoft Store, without affecting updates or the ability for developers to the Microsoft Store Web Installer for their applications. You can now also have multiple online search providers in Windows Search, and countless Microsoft applications and Windows components will no longer default to opening Edge for web content, opting to use your default browser instead.
These are all very welcome improvements for European Windows users. It’s almost like consumer protection laws work.
Yet another blow to us in the UK from leaving the EU.
When I install Windows I tell the installer I am in Ireland to get round this
About time. Let’s see now if the EU will do something about the new “need to have a Microsoft account in order to install their OS” thing…
Just spam the windows button to bring up the start menu over and over in rapid succession, soon you will use all cpu on all cores regardless of CPU. This is due to the lower suggestion part being written in META’s react as a plugin.
Truly bad design.
I keep seeing great reasons for Canada to join Europe, but this is my favorite so far.
the meme became reality
How does it determine whether a user is in the EU? Regional Settings or something online?