Microsoft Plans Smartphone-Style Permission Prompts for Windows 11 Apps
4 68Microsoft is planning to bring smartphone-style app permission prompts to Windows 11, requiring apps to get explicit user consent before they can access sensitive resources like the file system, camera and microphone. The company's Windows Platform engineer Logan Iyer said the move was prompted by applications increasingly overriding user settings, installing unwanted software, and modifying core Windows experiences without permission.
A separate initiative called Windows Baseline Security Mode will enforce runtime integrity safeguards by default, allowing only properly signed apps, services, and drivers to run. Both changes will roll out in phases as part of Microsoft's Secure Future Initiative, which the company launched in November 2023 after a federal review board called its security culture "inadequate."
4 comments
Pot, Meet Kettle (Score: 5, Insightful)
by crunchy_one ( 1047426 ) on Thursday February 12, 2026 @01:13PM (#65985218)
The company's Windows Platform engineer Logan Iyer said the move was prompted by applications increasingly overriding user settings, installing unwanted software, and modifying core Windows experiences without permission.
Excuese me, but aren't these behaviors already baked right into Windows 11?
Good idea but..... (Score: 5, Insightful)
by tbords ( 9006337 ) on Thursday February 12, 2026 @01:15PM (#65985228)
Would this apply equally to all applications including Microsoft's own? If not, this is yet another violation. Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Office, Outlook, etc. are all some of the largest perpetrators of this behavior. Windows itself is a large perpetrator of this same behavior and repeatedly ignores user choice.
Nope (Score: 5, Interesting)
by RitchCraft ( 6454710 ) on Thursday February 12, 2026 @01:26PM (#65985260)
Nope, I would rather have an OS for a PC, not a smart phone. You've lost your way Microslop.
It will fail (Score: 5, Insightful)
by Schoenlepel ( 1751646 ) on Thursday February 12, 2026 @01:32PM (#65985290)
Like all the other things Microsoft recently tried to implement; it'll be implemented badly and will eventually be rolled back because it's broken state.