You will need to reset your PC to use this new Windows 11 security feature

• Microsoft’s new Windows 11 security feature is aimed at helping protect users from malicious apps.
• With Android apps now available on Windows 11, this feature offers an important layer of protection against malware.
• However, there’s bad news for those who have installed Windows 11 already.

Microsoft has been adding a slew of new features to Windows 11 since its launch late last year. Among the additions is a new security feature that aims to protect you from malicious apps on your computer, but there’s a major issue even before it is rolled out to users.

Microsoft announced the new Smart App Control feature for Windows 11 at its “future of hybrid work” seminar, apart from several other announcements like a tabbed file explorer, video conferencing improvements thanks to artificial intelligence (AI), system-wide live captions and more.

The addition of Smart App Control is important for one major reason – Android apps. With Android apps now available on Windows 11 computers, thanks to Amazon Appstore, and soon, Google’s Play Games service, it is important that there is a mechanism to ensure users are protected against malicious apps.


Android apps have long been a popular vector to spread malware, and despite Google’s best efforts, malware has often been spotted on the Google Play store. With Windows 11 adding Android app support, it opens up millions of computer users across the world to another vector of attack.

What is Windows 11 Smart App Control?

Microsoft is bringing some of the security enhancements, known as SmartScreen, from its Edge browser to the Windows 11 operating system. It’s worth noting that SmartScreen has been available in the erstwhile Internet Explorer as well.

Smart App Control employs a similar technique to protect you against malicious apps that you may have downloaded without knowing whether they are safe or not.

Every time you download and run a new app, Smart App Control uses code signing and artificial intelligence to only allow those processes which are deemed safe. The feature uses “trillions of signals”, according to Microsoft’s vice president of OS security, David Weston.

If that sounds interesting to you, then here’s the bad news – you will have to reset your computer if you are already running Windows 11.

“Smart App Control will ship on new devices with Windows 11 installed. Devices running previous versions of Windows 11 will have to be reset and have a clean installation of Windows 11 to take advantage of this feature,” Weston said.

Essentially, Microsoft is penalising early adopters of its latest operating system, and those who have held back from updating now have another big reason to stay on Windows 10.

Apart from this, Microsoft has also announced other security enhancements like credential guard enabled by default and personal data encryption, among other enterprise-grade security features.

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