Windows 11’s AI Uninstall Button Works on Only One Model

Microsoft slipped a feature into Windows 11 Insider Experimental Preview build 26300.8553 without mentioning it in the official changelog: a dedicated Settings page that lists every local AI model installed on Copilot+ PCs, complete with publisher, version, installation date, disk size, and an uninstall button. The button works on exactly one model out of those listed.

That model is Phi Silica, an on-device language model designed for the neural processing units (NPUs) inside Copilot+ hardware. Researchers at Pureinfotech, a Windows-focused technology publication, discovered the hidden page and confirmed the uninstall option only after manually enabling the feature on a test PC, indicating it remains in active development. Microsoft has not announced the page publicly and has given no timeline for a wider rollout.

Microsoft’s New AI Inventory

The AI Components page sits inside the Settings app under System and presents a detail subpage for each installed local model. The interface exposes a consistent set of fields across every listed component:

• Publisher – the organization that released the model
• Version – the model’s release number
• Installation date – when the component arrived on the system
• Size on disk – the storage footprint the model occupies
• Total usage – how frequently the model has been accessed since installation

The page is primarily relevant to Copilot+ PCs, the hardware class Microsoft introduced with Windows 11 version 24H2. Those devices require an NPU rated at 40 trillion operations per second (TOPS) or higher, alongside 16 gigabytes of RAM and at least 256 gigabytes of storage. Copilot+ machines are the only Windows 11 systems running local AI workloads through Microsoft’s Windows Copilot Runtime. That runtime is the software platform connecting on-device models to Windows features and third-party applications.

Pureinfotech had to manually enable the page on a test system before the uninstall option appeared, placing the feature among those Microsoft is testing without surfacing to regular Insider participants. The official release notes for build 26300.8553 cover new Start menu customization, Search substring matching, and a Taskbar touch gesture. The AI Components page appears in none of them.

Phi Silica and the Features It Carries

Phi Silica is Microsoft’s on-device language model, built to run exclusively on the NPUs inside Copilot+ machines. It launched alongside the first wave of Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite-based devices and later expanded to Intel Core Ultra 200V (Lunar Lake) and AMD Ryzen AI 300 series hardware. Screenshots of the AI Components interface show it consuming more than 2.5 gigabytes of storage, a figure large enough to matter on a machine starting at 256 gigabytes of total drive space.

Removing the model disables the on-device AI features that depend on it. Insider reports from early testing of the interface indicate those features include Recall (Microsoft’s screenshot-indexing capability for Copilot+ devices), Cocreator (the generative drawing tool in Paint), and third-party applications that route local language processing through the Windows platform. Affected apps fall back to cloud-based processing or become unavailable entirely after removal, and completing the process requires a system reboot.

The language model’s removal frees more storage than any other operation the interface currently permits. Microsoft treats the Windows Copilot Runtime as a core platform dependency in its technical documentation, separate from optional capabilities.

What Else Arrived in Build 26300.8553

The official changelog covers three documented changes in the build, none of them the AI management page:

• Expanded customization for the Start menu, giving users more control over which apps are pinned and how they’re arranged
• Improved Search with substring matching, so results surface when a query term falls in the middle of a filename or app name, not just at the start
• A touch swipe gesture to reveal the Taskbar when it is docked in an alternative position on the desktop

X users @techosarusrex and @PhantomOfEarth found the AI Components page independently of any official disclosure. Pureinfotech confirmed the working uninstall button on a test device and published the finding on June 3. Features present in build code but absent from the changelog are under internal evaluation and can be withdrawn before any stable update ships. Microsoft has previously delayed or restructured AI features after Insider scrutiny raised concerns, including with Recall itself.

The gap between what Microsoft publishes and what researchers find inside a build is a standing feature of Experimental Preview releases specifically. Microsoft uses that channel to test capabilities requiring more iteration before any public commitment, which means a feature appearing there can be modified significantly or stripped of specific options before general availability. For the AI Components page, the uninstall scope is precisely the kind of detail that can change.

A History of AI Added Without Permission

The Silent Installation Pattern

The new transparency page arrives after a period in which Microsoft’s AI additions to Windows 11 came without any dedicated management interface. The company has used a component servicing pipeline to push AI packages to Copilot+ devices through Windows Update, placing them in the same infrastructure category as Windows Setup and Safe OS fixes. Those updates arrive in the background, with no progress indicator and no separate changelog entry visible to end users.

The component servicing approach lets Microsoft update individual AI subsystems without triggering full cumulative updates, meaning the AI model layer on a Copilot+ PC can change independently of the rest of the operating system. Users who check Windows Update history see that a component update was installed but receive no detail about what changed in the underlying model or how that change affects system behavior.

The pattern extended beyond Copilot+ hardware. In late 2025, Microsoft began pushing the Microsoft 365 Copilot app to Windows devices with Office applications installed through a silent background installation. Users in the European Economic Area (EEA) received an automatic exemption from that rollout, attributed to regional regulatory requirements. Enterprise administrators could block the push through the Microsoft 365 Apps admin center. Individual consumers had no equivalent pre-installation opt-out, and Microsoft’s published guidance acknowledged that manually removed versions could return in future update cycles.

Recall’s Blowback

The sharpest episode in that sequence was Recall. Announced in 2024 as a Copilot+ capability that would periodically capture screenshots of user activity and make them searchable through natural language queries, it was initially configured to be on by default. Security researchers quickly demonstrated that its local snapshot database could be extracted with minimal system permissions, exposing passwords, financial records, and private messages from the stored screenshot history.

It was, frankly, a pretty baffling and rare self own from Microsoft.

Kevin Beaumont, a cybersecurity researcher who tested the feature on a Copilot+ device, published that assessment in an analysis on his DoublePulsar security research blog, documenting how malware on the device could pull stored snapshot data directly. Microsoft delayed the feature, made it opt-in, required Windows Hello biometric authentication to access the timeline, and encrypted stored snapshots using TPM-protected keys. In early 2026, the company said it would reduce Copilot’s presence across the Windows 11 interface. What it didn’t address was the growing collection of background AI components accumulating on Copilot+ devices without a user-facing inventory tool.

The Components Microsoft Won’t Let You Touch

Required for System Functionality

The removable option sits alongside components that carry no equivalent control. Insider screenshots of the interface show additional AI packages in the same panel, including the Windows Copilot Runtime, without any active removal button. The gHacks report that first surfaced the page describes the situation directly: it remains unclear whether Microsoft plans to expand uninstall support or whether some models will stay non-removable due to system dependencies, and Microsoft has made no statement on the question.

For users managing storage on a machine built to the Copilot+ PC hardware minimum of 256 gigabytes, the scope of what cannot be removed matters. The full cumulative disk footprint across all AI components on a configured Copilot+ system has not been published by Microsoft. The component servicing pipeline that originally placed these packages on the drive is also the mechanism for future AI model updates, meaning locked components can grow through Windows Update without first prompting the user. Users who need to know the exact footprint of each non-removable component have no official documentation to consult.

The Enterprise Audit Gap

For IT administrators managing Copilot+ machines at scale, the new page addresses a visibility problem while leaving the control problem intact. Determining which AI models are installed on a managed device, when they arrived, and what version they are running currently requires PowerShell queries or third-party inventory tooling on most Windows 11 deployments. The AI Components page, if it reaches a stable release, would surface that information inside a standard System subpage any technician can navigate.

Visibility stops there. Microsoft’s AI model preinstallation guidance for OEMs and IT professionals describes how AI packages can be embedded in Windows images before a device reaches an end user, through component servicing configurations applied during manufacturing. Organizations in healthcare, finance, and legal services operating under strict data-protection regulations need to account for any background process with access to on-screen content before deployment, not after. Some third-party developers, including Signal and Brave, have already implemented mechanisms that block Windows AI features from accessing their applications in response to such concerns.

The AI Components page in this Experimental build provides no Group Policy integration, no enterprise controls governing which models end users can remove, and no documented reinstall pathway for components a user has taken out. Microsoft’s Insider Program guidance specifies that Experimental Preview builds target individual testers rather than managed enterprise environments, which means this version of the page hasn’t been evaluated against organizational management requirements.

An Unannounced Page, an Unstated Timeline

Copilot+ PCs accounted for less than 2 percent of Windows laptops sold in early 2025, according to market data cited in Proton’s analysis of Recall’s privacy implications for Copilot+ users. The hardware this management page is built for remains a small share of the Windows install base, even after two Windows 11 feature updates expanded the compatible device list.

Microsoft has set no public timeline for the AI Components page to progress from the Experimental Preview channel to a stable build. The feature appears in no official Windows 11 roadmap or developer documentation as of June 2026. Experimental Preview builds typically run ahead of the public Dev Channel and can reach users through either a future feature update or a cumulative release for an existing version, but Microsoft has named no target for either path. Microsoft has also tied the Copilot+ certification to NPUs shipping from Qualcomm, Intel, and AMD since 2024, and each new generation of qualifying hardware expands the population of devices where the local AI component stack applies.

The company has not confirmed which additional components, if any, will eventually receive an uninstall option. Users who want the feature today must manually enable it on an Experimental Insider build, reboot the system, and lose the on-device AI capabilities tied to whatever model they remove.