Microsoft retires in-built data leak prevention for Windows 11 - so you'll now have to pay

Come cambiare il tema su Windows 11 (Image credit: 123RF)

Microsoft is retiring Windows Information Protection (WIP), a data leak prevention tool that came with the operating system. Instead, it will focus on its big brother, Purview Data Loss Prevention (DLP).

The news was confirmed in a blog post by Windows Core Data Protection Team program manager, Rafal Sosnowski, who noted that, "Certain capabilities within the solution known as Windows Information Protection (WIP), previously referred to as Enterprise Data Protection (EDP) will be discontinued over time."

Unlike WIP, DLP is "deeply integrated with Microsoft Purview Information Protection to help your organization discover, classify, and protect sensitive information as it is used or shared,” he further said, suggesting that WIP’s big brother, capable of protecting data on multiple endpoints, cloud services, and third-party SaaS solutions, will take it from here.

Slow sunset

Microsoft won’t be simply pulling the plug on WIP, though. It will be a process that will take a bit of time. Don’t expect WIP to be included in future versions of the OS, though. "To support your multi-cloud and multi-platform data protection journey and simplify your decision-making process, we are announcing today that Windows Information Protection (WIP) is no longer under active feature development and will be discontinued in future versions of Windows," he reiterated.

“The sunset process will follow the standard Windows client feature lifecycle, which shows which existing features and capabilities are supported and for what timelines,” Sosnowski concluded.

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Reporting on the news, The Register said WIP was likely to be included in Windows 11 version 22H2, as that version is “deep in development”, and could be found in a couple of additional versions, too. The publication doesn’t seem to be all too excited with the news, however, as a Windows function is being replaced by a service putting users on the “subscription treadmill.”

“Its departure will mean added cost and complexity, because Purview has a complex consumption-based pricing structure,” it concluded.

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Via: The Register

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Sead is a seasoned freelance journalist based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He writes about IT (cloud, IoT, 5G, VPN) and cybersecurity (ransomware, data breaches, laws and regulations). In his career, spanning more than a decade, he’s written for numerous media outlets, including Al Jazeera Balkans. He’s also held several modules on content writing for Represent Communications.