- Microsoft changed a security feature in Windows 11 preview builds
- Smart App Control can now be activated or deactivated at will (under testing)
- Currently, turning this feature off – to install an app that it blocks, if you know the software is safe – means it can’t be turned back on.
Microsoft finally changed a useful security feature in Windows 11 so that it can be turned on and off as needed, at least in testing – whereas currently, if you turn off Smart App Control, it can never be turned back on.
Windows Latest noticed the change last month in Windows 11 preview builds for the Dev and Beta channels, but went unnoticed at the time.
Smart App Control (SAC) is a feature that interrogates any app you install on your Windows 11 PC, comparing it to Microsoft’s threat intelligence (in the cloud) to determine if there’s anything suspicious about it.
If SAC detects a possible problem indicating that an app might contain malware or be a “potentially unwanted program” (PUP), it will block the installation, protecting you from any theoretical harm.
This is a nice feature, but the problem is that SAC can sometimes be too careful and block legitimate software. And if you know that the application you are trying to install is working properly and therefore you want to disable SAC to allow that software to install, you cannot re-enable SAC.
As Microsoft explains in an FAQ about the feature: “To ensure a more secure experience, we enable Smart App Control only on new installations of Microsoft Windows 11. We want to be sure that no untrusted apps are already running on the device when we enable Smart App Control.
This literally means that SAC can only be enabled with a fresh install of Windows 11, and if you disable it, there’s no way to go back – just in case any untrustworthy apps have slipped in in the meantime. Frankly, this doesn’t make much sense, and it removes the ability to quickly disable and then re-enable SAC, as a workaround for installing a legitimate app.
As it stands, if it’s turned off, the only way to recover the SAC is to reinstall or reset the Windows 11 PC (not reboot – that means a complete OS reset), which is a major problem.
Fortunately, Microsoft has now seen common sense and introduced the ability to enable or disable SAC whenever you want, which is present in Windows Security > App & Browser Control > Smart App Control Settings – in draft versions, as noted.
Analysis: SAC change took a long time to come
Presumably this change will reduce testing, because as noted, this seriously frustrates the way SAC currently works. If you are having issues with legitimate software, you should remove the feature completely or disable it and then run a full PC reset process to re-enable it.
How this design implementation was allowed to fly I’m not sure. SAC is a useful additional line of defense against possible malware or adware, especially for less tech-savvy people who might need the extra protection the most. But these are exactly the users who won’t want to completely reset their PC to turn it back on (or even understand that it’s permanently turned off), so it never made much sense.
Either way, Microsoft has now made it so that you can get any app that you know is safe on your PC, even if SAC blocks it, by temporarily disabling the feature. Some sort of allowlist would arguably be a better approach, allowing you to specify trusted applications, but that’s nitpicking (and this feature could still be introduced into testing, perhaps).
It’s also worth noting that in its current implementation, SAC will still be disabled if you upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11 (as it’s not a fresh install). And with a fresh install of Windows 11, it has a “trial mode” in which SAC determines whether it’s suitable for your PC (based on the type of software you typically install and whether it’s in the way a lot). Hopefully this review can now be removed if there is an easy way to turn SAC off and on again at will without having to completely reset your operating system.
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