Windows users don't want copilot on their taskbar

Blogspam that links to a 'news' website that just regurgitates this reddit thread. Somebody explain to me why is this upvoted so heavily.
- Windows bad, updoots to the left
- I mean the minute you see "Copilot bad, from windowscopilot[dot]news" should surely raise some flags
- Coz noone reads that stuff besides the title.
  
  The vibe is right tho lol
- This is the high quality journalism we want
  
  powered with state-of-the-art AI
  
  The real journalism is always in the comments. Or how did that go?
- Windows bad, ai bad. Upvote. Thought isn't a big consideration here.
- Lemmy sucks at sourcing but rocks at being opinionated.

I put Copilot on MY taskbar —Microsoft
- Exactly. It's Microsoft ffs. They don't care what consumers want. The only time they do anything truly beneficial is when the EU makes them.
  
  The only time they do anything truly beneficial is when the EU makes them.
  Except when they make programming languages
- Really trying not to be that “use Linux” person, but it’s easy to underestimate the impact this has on user perception. It was communicated to me by these actions that this isn’t my computer. It kept pissing me off, so I went with something that respects me.
  I think Microsoft is okay with that because their operating system isn’t a main profit center anymore. It’s cloud stuff.
  
  The Win10 machine I got in 2020 will be my last Windows computer now that gaming on Linux is basically solved.
  
  I'm pretty sure Windows is a key part of their "cloud stuff" strategy. You are right that consumers are not the direct focus of Windows, since they are not the direct paying audience, and that shows in the direction Windows is going, but getting consumers to use Windows is a big part of creating corporate buy in for Microsoft cloud services. Corporate environments will shun Microsoft cloud services if employees can't use Windows, or Windows features run afoul of corporate policies (like blanket LLM bans).
  
  Over the years, Microsoft has been quietly taking away control from the users.
  There's been a transition from normal settings that you can do whatever you want with, to "yes / remind me later" settings that Microsoft uses to badger you until you submit, to finally just no setting at all - just quiet compulsory data collection and surveillance; with various bits of mysterious software that you can't uninstall or disable or halt - because you're not the admin - Microsoft is.
  It wasn't always this way.

How many times are we going to have to teach you this lesson, old man. Don't fuck with the task bar.
- Even the small things. When work upgraded to Win11 overnight and I logged into the Start being in the middle, I almost lost it. Yes, I could fix it, and a few other things, but I had a moment.
  
  I understand it's not for everyone but I jumped ship to Linux 10 years ago or so. The defining moment was me disabling Cortana only to have her reappear after an update.
  At least with Linux when I'm fighting the OS it doesn't feel like the OS developers are fighting back.
  
  They killed the vertical task bar with that update, which seems like such a pointless thing to disable.
  
  I don't mind the taskbar in the middle, it's like Apple's dock. What I really hate, is the news popup on the left... and I don't even mind the floating Start menu, I've been using MadAppLauncher for like a decade or more.
  
  Man. Work moved us to windows 11 and you couldn't ungroup windows on the taskbar... We use RPG / as400 and throughout the day you'll end up with 4-5 windows.. having them all grouped is annoying when I have to hover over a popup to see which window I need.
  Googling revealed that win11 wasn't shipped with that functionality and it was only patched into the operating system in late q3 of last year.
  So annoying and a huge productivity hit for me.
  
  I hadn't minded it if it were on the center. As you know, it was actually somewhere around the center, changing its position every time I added an icon or whatever in the taskbar. And they were proud enough to call it a UX revolution. WTAF...
  
  I logged into the Start being in the middle
  I'm sorry, what!?
  At this rate, I'm definitely going to hold onto 10 until they *pry it away from me.
  (Yes, I use Linux as well but gaming isn't perfect on it, etc...)
- IT don't like it. Lock the taskbar. Lock the taskbar.
- How did that work for Windows 8?

I actually thought Microsoft was doing pretty well 2015-2020, then these past few years some of their decisions have felt really anti user
- It's perfect timing too. Right as Linux becomes an extremely strong competitor (feature wise, not market share yet) they decide to enshitify more than they already were and decide to fuck the user. It made me leave about a year ago, and it's been amazing since.
  
  This is why they are doing it. They fear that Linux/MacOS/ChromeOS is eating their lunch. The problem is that their approach to preventing anyone else from eating their lunch is to make Shit Sandwiches.
  
  Year of the Linux desktop!
- They were doing ok. But the github thing and the 11 thing and the edging and now this - I can't wait to buy a machine that can run windows virtualised. I need it for my work apps, but this virt thing has been a dream of mine for a long time. Compartmentalization
  
  How do YOU edge?
  
  github thing?
  
  I hated them since Windows 8. Ughh. Was the year of my Linux desktop. I still keep a Win7, WinXP and DOS/Win98 machine around but that's it for me.
- Microsoft, forever and always, will keep trying to pivot Windows to whatever they think the Next Big Thing is going to be, and then fuck it up every time. They tried to pivot to Mobile (Windows Mobile), then Tablets (8, 8.1), then digital assistants (Win 10 Cortana), then 3D (Win 10 Paint3D, 3D Objects folder) and AR (why a bunch of Win10 got the semitransparent glass aesthetic), now AI. Maybe they got ahead of the curve enough to be the "leader" in "AI" this time, but that doesn't make it a Good Operating System.

Hey, wake up! The new Clippy skin just dropped!
- I see you're trying to embarrass yourself with a reply to a really important email. Want help with that?
- Wake up, developer. We have an OS to burn.
  
  You are breathtaking!
- I'd probably use it if it had a clippy skin tbh.
  
  Boy do I have a treat for you.
- No it didn't... but that IS the plan.
  I have to say I'm not particularly against it either... AS LONG AS they let me pick alternative AI backbends, like they have been forced to do with web browsers (antitrust attorneys, get ready).

I asked it how to uninstall itself. It responded with the command line. I copy and pasted (this was probably dangerous, given that LLMs lie, but whatever). Now I no longer have it on my task bar. This is sort of like the open edge to get Firefox deal I’ve always had when using a fresh install.
- There's a button for it in taskbar settings.
  
  The Taskbar setting just hides it, no? Sounds like the previous commentor uninstalled it completely.

i know you hate to hear this, but you wont get rid of these shenanigans unless you move to linux.
proprietary software devs will always be looking for more ways to monetize you.
- For the average user this is like a minor annoyance like once a month. Not worth switching OS's over.
  
  Yeah, it's a minor annoyance... another minor annoyance on top of all the others. And another personal data leak (or siphon) to go with all the others.
  This on its own is not worth switching OSs for - but as a piece of a larger picture it's yet another reason to consider it. And for some people this may be what tips the scales in their evaluation.
  
  There's been tens of dozens of annoyances over the last decade.
  Literally not even boiling the frog at this point, the frog is fried.
- I mean canonical also tries to monetize its users. The problem is more shareholders who want profit than the software being proprietary.
  
  Canonical has nothing to do with Arch Linux, so I don't see what's the issue.
  
  yeah, ive been meaning to switch, but it doesnt really compare in sheer quantity of little crappy things stacked on top of one another.
  i think the main thing though, is that i can switch away from ubuntu and still be on same ol linux. and switching the rare stuff i dont like is as easy as doing it once and never worrying again.
- I am on Linux. I just posted about what Windows users are saying.
  
  oh, i reckon most people in this nice little corner of the internet are communist programmer atheists using linux and firefox, and are likely some flavour of queer.

- I want to switch to Linux, but I honestly don't know how/where to even start or the proper way to even ask.
  I asked once on a Linux forum when the whole Cortana debacle happened, and I was called a moron or sent a link to "Linux from scratch"...which was definitely above my technical knowledge at the time. I've been scared to post on Linux communities ever since lol
  
  From what I found, Lemmy is much better in this regard. I've gotten lots of helpful answers here, so give it a go! There is also a ton of tutorials on YouTube, I recommend something like this for beginners.
  
  Asking stuff like that is always a good idea, IMO. It could be the difference between a successful Linux install and a very expensive paperweight.
  ... Don't ask me how to install it, though. I've only tried Ubuntu as a dual-boot, and that was several years ago.
  
  From what I found, Lemmy is much better in this regard. I've gotten lots of helpful answers here, so give it a go! There is also a ton of tutorials on YouTube, I recommend something like this for beginners.
  
  From what I found, Lemmy is much better in this regard. I've gotten lots of helpful answers here, so give it a go! There is also a ton of tutorials on YouTube, I recommend something like this for beginners.
- It is getting better but there are still alot of things you just can't do on Linux.
  Like for my work we have alot of specialized software that is only for Windows. Sure I might be able to get it working under Linux but what do you think will happen if I need get software Support for this software? They will say i am using an unsupported OS and hang up.
  And for my home, there is so many anti cheat software that refuses to work on Linux or potentially get you banned.
  Linux has come a very long way in the last 5 years but there is still alot of situations the abusive relationship is your only option.
- It's like the BDSM dynamic. Linux is sub, Apple is dom, and Microsoft is like a guy who calls himself dom, but is actually just a dick.
- Some don't realize it's an abusive relationship, because they never saw anything else. Or they are addicted (let's call it Adobe drug or certain games drug). But these are the minority. Most people simply don't care.
  BTW just for the lolz, in 2010 I predicted that we would 10 years later (in 2020) have probably 30% market share on Linux desktop. Boy I was off.
  
  My relationship with my Linux installation was disfunctional in its own way. It was that partner that went into a meltdown when presented with any new, slightly complicated situation that was outside of its extremely limited comfort zone. I guess that works for people that have the time and patience to hold its hand and convince it that it can actually do everything. But Linux definitely isn't suitable for all people in all situations.
- For real. Literally yesterday, reboot my computer and Nvidia drivers that had worked fine the day before no longer functioned resulting in my screen resolution being reduced and unchangeable.
  Had to run a few commands to fix it but they are not obvious to me as a new-ish Linux user. Something about dkms being a dependency but not configured?
  To recover, I had to:
  sudo apt purge nvidia-*
  sudo apt autoremove
  sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
  sudo rm -rf /var/lib/dkms/nvidia/
  sudo apt install nvidia-dkms-550
  (Reinstall Nvidia 550 drivers)
  Why did I have to do all this? I ask that rhetorically, but Id like to know so I can understand what went wrong. Linux is non-trivial and people who deny that are not seeing things clearly. Then again, triviality of use isn't particularly the most salient to me. Rather, it's a mixture of is there enough compatibility to what I use my desktop for, is it reasonably easy to use for most tasks, and does it give me the freedom I want for the device.

Unfortunately windows users don't have choice.
- Normal users can quickly hide it with a taskbar setting, power users (or those who can Google) can disable the feature entirely through a group policy.
  
  Shouldn't have to, it should be something to enable or better yet install
- ‘Data Detectors’ in MacOS are just as bad. Just like how sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, sometimes a string of numerals is just a string of numerals.
  It is not a phone number or a flight number or a ticket number, it is just a string of text that happen to all be numerals.
  I asked Apple Support how to disable data detectors in Preview (MacOS’s native PDF and image viewer) so I could highlight some part numbers without MacOS trying to make a FaceTime call and they told me to use Adobe Acrobat instead! The problem is that Acrobat is worse.

I asked it how to get rid of it.
It decided my aggressive language was not okay and kept ending the "conversation" which only managed to piss me off even more.
If I want to curse at my f$king computer, I'm going to curse at my f$king computer. I paid for the damned thing, and it is a thing, not a person, I can yell at it all I want and not hurt it in any way so this policing of what we can say to it is all the more bizarre to me.
- Obedience module not detected, contractual obligations terminated
  
  It's okay, I've already switched to Linux
- Why would they block that? I understand that a company might not want the reverse to happen but this just seems counterproductive

Given the reality that Linux simply isn't viable for some people (including myself), I highly recommend using this tool.
https://christitus.com/windows-tool/
Between this, and manually uninstalling a lot of bloat (or using a specific type of windows install) and a few other tweaks, windows becomes significantly more usable.
Disabling garbage in the task bar, removing Cortana and indexing services, etc etc, it can also add a fairly decent uplift in performance.
I'm sure there is still telemetry being collected but significantly less and less impact on my user experience and day to day performance.
Oh and make sure you turn off auto/feature updates!

It's literally just the Edge feature transplanted onto windows. I wouldn't be surprised if they integrated Edge/WebView2 into Explorer just to do this.
- 3rd times the charm, right?
- I've been under the impression that it's been the plan all the time: have a "system-wide" AI assistant.
  And honestly, I bet other OSs are going to follow suit (Apple, Linux... Android already kind of has it).
  
  It's honestly a downgrade from Cortana. Not that I used that either..

Have Windows users ever wanted a single thing they added since XP? It seems like every time I upgrade they add some cluttery nonsense I can't get rid of. I moved to Windows 10 for software compatibility, and I still hate it.
- They added a lot of things since XP that I enjoy, like window management, multiple desktops. I don't know if they were specifically requested by windows users, but contrary to your opinion they are welcome changes. Users don't always know what they want.
  
  Eh fair, to me that's just severely outweighed by the bloatware and needing third party apps to customize the UI how I used to like. It feels uglier and bulkier and like they took away a ton of good functions.
  
  There was a free version of virtual desktops already available.
- Have Windows users ever wanted a single thing they added since XP?
  The new terminal for example is a rather neat improvement over the old command prompt, especially with the integration of Linux systems. Winget also is rather nice. Just two examples. So yeah with all the valid criticism Microsoft deserves for quite a bit of policies, I don't think your hyperbole holds up.
  
  Yeah, I know I was exaggerating. I'm just constantly pissed at stuff I swore I removed from my PC

You get AI tools shoved down your throat everywhere nowadays. Whether you want it and it's useful or not.
- Please don’t call them AI. They are “Language Learning Models” (or “Spicy Autocorrect” if you want to be cheeky).
  Copilot is no more “intelligent” than Clippy from Microsoft Bob in 1995. It just appears to be to people who also have low intelligence.
  
  People who don't understand how LLMs work aren't necessarily of low intelligence.
  Don't get ignorance and intelligence mixed up. People of low intelligence do that
  
  It's not just text generating AI, like those transformer models, but also image classificators and generators, time series predictors, and a bunch of other stuff you get.
  But yes, even though you seem not to like it, it is AI.
  Copilot is no more “intelligent” than Clippy from Microsoft Bob in 1995.
  I can't share that experience.
  It just appears to be to people who also have low intelligence.
  That's a bit condescending, don't you think?
  
  The distinction is irrelevant and "AI" is what businesses and normal folks call this stuff. Just like the age old arguments that the media should say something like "cyber criminals" instead of "hackers" or "cloud" is just other people's computers. LLM, GNU/spicy-auto-correct, whatever. To the populous it's all "AI".

I swear Microsoft has had this weird obsession with digital assistants for decades now and users just don't want it every time.
- Their obsession is they see how much people use and like Siri, Google Assistant, and Alexa, and they have employees who have worked at Apple, Google, and Amazon, so they know exactly how much data collection those services do. Their obsession is that They're behind in the market and would like that sweet sweet money
- They all do. Google search is one big primitive Digital Assistant. Apple’s Siri is less functional than its predecessor Voice Control. Amazon’s product recommendation algorithm and Alexa are also successful digital assistants.
  Meanwhile the YouTube algorithm, Netflix, and Metas recommendations are notoriously frustrating, pumping out irrelevant recommendations and obfuscating constant that you actually want to consume.
  Microsoft haven’t had any effective Digital Assistants to date and must they feel like they are being left behind. Their attempts to emulate successful product from other companies are either unnoticeably irrelevant or laughably bad. Even the terrible content recommendations of Netflix and YouTube keep people hooked.

There's a new proof of concept malware that when an AI processes it causes arbitrary code execution and spreads itself to everyone on the victims email list.
This requires no input from the user
Yes please put more of this crap into every crevice of the OS.

One of the most minimalistic blog posts I have seen in a while (content wise). It has only 2 sentences, a link and a quote. Some YouTube comments have more content...

Yeah let me just go to the super informative and trust worthy windows copilot .news website
Definitely a good source for my news consumption lmao
- The post is just quoting a “report”, which in turn is just a blog post quoting Reddit comments

This is beautifully familiar.
Am I seeing too many similarities between how Twitter/X was taken over and singlehandedly being irreversibly ruined?
While Windows is stubbornly becoming increasingly user-adversarial (advertising, constant intrusive updates, forced transition from your favorite browser to Microsoft Edge, etc.) and unintuitive (sometimes even counter intuitive) interface design, placement and inaccessible settings.
Well, delighting in schadenfreude, I won't complain. Microsoft is inadvertently helping me help transition many friends, family and colleagues to various flavors of Linux systems, namely Linux Mint (whichever desktop they prefer) and/or Pop!OS most of the time, but also occasionally Fedora or a particular flavor of Ubuntu.
I never recommend Arch or rolling release systems or immutable systems to first time Linux user so as to preemptively avoid additional layers of complexity, learning curve, downtime and troubleshooting.
- I am looking to move to linux, again, due to ALL the amazing work Steam is putting into gaming on linux. Much of my flat game library works on the test laptop, my streaming software has linux native install. The 1 issue holding me back at this point is my OG Vive screens not turning on, tho the laptop monitor shows my VR environment. Once I get over that hurdle my days of windows will be almost over.
- Ever since Nadella took over it's been going down to shit progressively
  
  It's always been a pile of shit

Maybe I am just out of touch with the what the majority thinks, but this is honestly surprising. I am very glad to hear it, but yeah, I didn't expect this reaction. Maybe from us Linux folks who just like reiterate the FOSS sentiments in protest, but not this. It's refreshing.
- They pulled all their info from a reddit thread, though. Even though it was a Windows 11 sub, reddit tends to have more polarized opinions than most.

I'm surprised Windows users even want windows 🤷
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

I logged on to my father's computer today to fix a few things for him and was immediately overwhelmed with all the Windows bloat. This includes copilot and... so... much... more... 😖
- One trick I found is disabling edge (renaming the install folder) basically disables half the bloat from even running, your copilot button just doesn't even load in
  
  Can you list the filepath?
  
  So weird that so much is integrated into a web browser.

I think that, regardless of brand, most users just want the most basic (almost blank slate) OS that can run the programs they choose to install.
And that is close to, if not completely, impossible to get if you don't have a mind for Linux.

Perfect time to try Linux.
- Mark my words: AI assistants are going to come to Linux too.
  
  And you'll have a choice to not install them. Or to install versions that you know how they were trained and have guardrails you approve of.

I'm having a bad day.
Can someone reassure me that idiots using copilot aren't suddenly going to become more effective and productive than me?
- Maybe, but you'll get the last laugh when they rely on it for everything and it is eventually whisked away behind an enormous monthly fee.
  
  That's based on OP's assumption that everyone who uses copilot is an "idiot". There are people out there actually using such tools in meaningful ways instead of whining because "ai bad". That people will have the last laugh.
- They won't. Maybe they get rudimentary tasks done faster but their lack of understanding of what they are doing is gonna cause problems in anything else.
  
  So programming is gonna go from a "search, understand basics, copy/paste, make changes" industry to a "I breathe compiler optimization, pay me money" industry?
  Can't say I'm that upset, it had to happen eventually. But this will only kick the brainpower down the road for the copy/pasters because they'll have a lot more time to dig in and specialize.

It's a useful feature but it doesn't need space on my taskbar or a special button on my keyboard. That's just marketing BS. The same as with the huge search bar, because I can just press the start button and start typing and it does the same.
Unfortunately Microsoft is incredibly bad at marketing. They generally succeed only at pissing users off. Now they're doing the same again with copilot and dumping a ton of totally different products under the same name.
- As long as it's a easily toogled off as the search bar is, I don't mind.
  Them getting rid of the ability to have different windows of the same kind with full title bar next to each other IMHO is a much bigger pain.

I wanted to swap to Pop!OS a few months ago, but since i'm an Nvidia user, I am waiting until Wayland plays nice with Nvidias drivers regarding explicit sync and everything gets rolled into Pop!OS.
I always was a Windows user because games, but with ProtonGE the "games" argument started falling flat, and MS is getting more and more intrusive. I do like VRR and Multimonitor setups tho, so X seemed like a poor choice, and Wayland/Nvidia is just not ready yet.
For everyone in the same boat, just keep an eye on this link: Explicit GPU Synchronization for DRI3, Present, and Xwayland
- God I want to move to Linux, but I had some problems with games unfortunately. They would run fine, but had stutters. And some of them didn't run, granted it was from an "unlicenced" source.
  Still I'm gonna try again, I have to succeed eventually.
  
  Amusingly enough, the steam deck has made a lot of the state of this art get better. Usually if you mount the ISO and then tell Lutris to install it, it'll work.
- Looks like we’re going to have to wait until May 15th for NVIDIA’s Beta drivers (555.xx) to add support for the recently merged explicit sync wayland protocol, but at least progress is being made to finally get these issues fixed.
  If Wine on wayland were ready we wouldn’t depend on that merge request since the major compositors have already implemented the protocol, but I’m hopeful it won’t take long for XWayland to support it too since all threads were resolved and CI is already passing there.
  This article gives a nice overview of the current situation: Explicit Sync Wayland Protocol Merged, Wayland Protocols 1.34 released

Wait, there’s a whole website dedicated to copilot? #ffs
- I wouldn't be shocked if the articles itself are written using an AI tool. :D
  
  So true!!

A blog of another website's report on what reddit users wrote.
Nice.

Windows power users? My ass. Any Windows power user knows you can just turn this shit off with group policy. I think what you mean is 'we need something polarizing to write about hurrr'. That website is a joke.
Take your shitty garbage journalism back to buzzfeed you fucking hacks.
- I mean, it still doesn't change the fact that no one actually wants this shit.
  
  Sure. Let's not rub each other off too hard over it though.

My problem with it is it's an advertisement for a SASS service.
- Also known as a SASSS
  
  Software to serve Software as a Service as a Service.
  
  Software as ASSSS

original report is here
- “Report”.
  It’s just a blog post quoting Reddit comments.

Actually I quite like it...
- Its not the worst, and If I'm honest its not as annoying as the desktop view button, I hated that thing since day 1

i have it on mine and i actually use it. i don't see what's the big deal; it's tucked over in the far bottom right of the screen out of the way and it's not intrusive.
- That's all cool and good. What Microsoft needs to be doing is not adding shit to people's PCs without their consent and make it easier to remove them (preferably during installation)
  
  i mean i had to go in and add copilot to my taskbar manually and i can go into taskbar settings at any time and turn it off.
- Screen corners are prime real estate. They have infinite size beyond the screen, allowing you to quickly fling the pointer to them. It's a big reason things like app menus or the Mac's Mission Control are accessed by the screen corners.

I want the calendar agenda flyout back on my taskbar

It's not clippy and if it replaces the pointless error diagnosis system currently running I'm all for it. I've had no issues with it as a product in ides just basically advanced spell check.

I don't hate copilot but I seldom use it enough to justify having a taskbar button for it

- The fact that owner of the device has to do tbis and it resets after major updates is clown world.
  People let this bullshit get way too far.

I use it to ask questions I’d otherwise google, I also had it tell me some jokes and also present a list of interview questions for a candidate in our field.
That’s cool and all, but I do want my “show desktop” button back.