back to article Microsoft hijacks keyboard shortcut to bring Copilot to your attention

Copilot has gone native for Windows Insiders and commandeered a popular keyboard shortcut in the process. The move from a Progressive Web App (PWA) to a native binary – although most of it appears to still be a website, just not running as a PWA – will be welcomed. Microsoft noted that once the app update has been installed, …

  1. xyz123 Silver badge

    OK boss they STILL refuse to use copilot despite us DEMANDING they give us ALL their data.

    OK give it the following shortcut keys:

    CTRL+C CTRL+V, CTRL+ALT+DEL, Windows+S, The enter key, A E I O U

    1. Anonymous Custard Silver badge
      Joke

      Boss: But if they use CoPilot, surely they won't need a keyboard at all!

      Engineer: OK, so we can assign any key?

      Boss: Where's the any key?

      Engineer: Grrr. And don't call me Shirley!

      1. ComicalEngineer

        Having used Word since 1998, I nearly had a fit of the screaming abdabs when office 2007 came along and all of my keyboard shortcuts changed (I rarely use the mouse).

        For example convert text to table (one function I use quite a bit) changed from 2 keystrokes in Word 2000 / 2003 to Alt N T V - an extra keystoke. The same for numerous other shortcuts. That was the point where I transitioned to Open / Libre Office other then where forced to use Word.

        This strikes me as the same debacle: change a commonly used key sequence to something different just so it's different and therefore annoying a whole new tranche of users.

      2. SuperGeek

        Keyboard

        "Keyboard gate A20 failure"

        "Press F1 to continue"

        On a laptop.....

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Funny side effect of trying to force an unwanted feature on people by hijacking long-standing keyboard shortcuts is more folks will disable your new feature.

      1. ThatOne Silver badge
        Devil

        ...if Microsoft permits it. Don't ever forget, you can only disable their things as long as they tolerate it.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          I'm not asking Microsoft. My W10 PC stays W10, others are already running Linux.

      2. david1024

        I'm sure someone is crafting a 'copilot disable app' for subscription for when this stink-bomb goes live.

    3. The Man Who Fell To Earth Silver badge
      FAIL

      All I want to know

      Is how to keep Copilot disabled.

      1. Someone Else Silver badge

        Re: All I want to know

        Now that CopAlot is a native binary, does that mean it can be uninstalled just like the other binary apps?

        1. Helcat Silver badge

          Re: All I want to know

          They'll just reinstall it / enable it each time there's a patch.

          They want you to use it, and become dependent on it, even though it's pretty damn useless. Had a demo of copilot where the demonstrator had previously produced graphs based on a dataset. Nice and easy. Only it didn't work when it came to show us how it worked. It kept returning lists of data, incorrect values, and generally was a rather poor showing.

          The question was : Why? What had changed ? And if things are so subject to change as to render Copilot incapable of producing what it once was happy to produce. And if it keeps changing what it can do: Is it really that useful?

          Was quite interesting to watch: Not the demonstration planned, but a demonstration never the less.

      2. sedregj Bronze badge
        Linux

        Re: All I want to know

        "Is how to keep Copilot disabled."

        When I hit Ctrl-Space I get a little Search box appear at the top of my screen. I can map that shortcut to anything I like too.

      3. Strahd Ivarius Silver badge
        Coat

        Re: All I want to know

        Move to Linux?

        1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge

          Re: All I want to know

          There is a general malaise amongst certain parts of the tech community for doing away with longstanding conventions, irrespective of platform. So in my case, it's frequent fighting against the flow when Mozilla updates Firefox or Thunderbird and have messed up the UI again. Windows 11 at work... Notepad can no longer be operated at ease using the keyboard shortcuts.

      4. PeeKay
        Pint

        Re: All I want to know

        Taskbar Settings:

        Right click the taskbar.

        Select “Taskbar settings.”

        Toggle off the “Copilot” switch.

        Registry Editor:

        Press Win + R, type regedit, and press Enter.

        Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer.

        Create a new DWORD value named DisableCopilot and set it to 1.

        Group Policy Editor (Windows 11 Pro):

        Press Win + R, type gpedit.msc, and press Enter button.

        Navigate to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Copilot.

        Enable the policy “Disable Copilot.“

        The registry settings works on most versions of Windows 11. The rest work with Windows 11 Pro.

        Not seen it since I implemented this fix. Thankfully.

      5. Sleep deprived

        Re: All I want to know

        Perhaps ask Copilot how to uninstall it

    4. david1024

      They are somewhat safe until they repurpose alt+tab

    5. Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch Silver badge

      From Windows' inception until the introduction of Windows 95 / NT4, the icon in the top left corner of all windows, the one used to access the application context menu, was a white square with an elongated horizontal rectangle in it - a visual reminder that the keyboard shortcut for it is Alt-Space. On. Every. Fucking. Window.

      1. Jou (Mxyzptlk) Silver badge

        This is true. I remember using ALT-SPACE in Windows 2.03 on my uncles PC.

        See the manual, page 34.

        I was not able to find the Windows 1.x manual to check whether it works there too though...

        1. Jou (Mxyzptlk) Silver badge

          Windows 1 manual, page 27

          "1. Hold down the ALT Key"

          "2. Press the SPACEBAR. This displays the System Menu, which is common to all applications that appear in a window,"

          "3. Release the ALT key. Once you display a menu, you can release the ALT key and the menu stays on the screen"

          They don't do manuals like that any more.

          Edit: So I DID use that key since Windows 1 on my uncles computer. That Windows version has the animated start screen too.

  2. PCScreenOnly

    Do they even know what users do or how

    I use the shortcuts a lot as it saves time getting to a mouse when you know them

    alt-space is not one I use that much, but if a window has pootled off the page for whatever reason - alt - space - M is a saver.

    1. KittenHuffer Silver badge

      Re: Do they even know what users do or how

      That's my main use for Alt+Space as well.

      What you have to do now is hover over the icon for the app on your taskbar. Then when the 'mini' windows appear move the mouse to the one you want and right-click. That'll bring up the Alt+Space menu that you're used to.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Do they even know what users do or how

        does it work when the application window, for some reason, is displayed outside the current viewport?

        1. K.o.R
          Thumb Up

          Re: Do they even know what users do or how

          I can't actually get a window completely off the screen, but the control menu appears by the taskbar button.

    2. Neil Barnes Silver badge

      Re: Do they even know what users do or how

      Still trying to work out W11's window positioning logic: with W10, anything on an external monitor when the laptop was suspended moves to the laptop screen when woken up, even if the external screen was still attached, which seems odd. With W11, things on the external monitor stay there even if the monitor is removed. Annoying... so kill that window from the task bar - which no longer has a 'maximise' option - and restart it. And it wakes up in the same off-screen location...

      So alt-space-M it is then.

      1. Someone Else Silver badge

        Re: Do they even know what users do or how

        Yeah, have that problem a lot. Micros~1 really doesn't manage multiple monitors very well, now do they?

        And don't get me started on the Remote Desktop Random Window Placement algorithm. I mean really, how hard is it to remember the window's geometry when it is closed or even minimized? (Apparently, it's too hard for Micros~1's Millennial Muddlers...)

        1. Sceptic Tank Silver badge
          Linux

          Re: Do they even know what users do or how

          Unfortunately I have to report thah the multi-monitor handling in X11 / Xfce is way, way, wayland worse. I have one monitor in landscape mode and another one in portrait mode. Leave the system alone for a few minutes and some type of power event presumably happens, resetting the portrait mode monitor to landscape orientation. Confound it! Haven't yet been able to track that problem down. Setting up a profile helps a little bit to quickly restore the settings, but that is hardly ideal.

          1. ICL1900-G3 Silver badge

            Re: Do they even know what users do or how

            Really? Works for me, always has...3 screens correctly positioned.

            1. Neil Barnes Silver badge
              Linux

              Re: Do they even know what users do or how

              I can only report that my Mint/Cinnamon setup manages things with the laptop's 2k screen and an external 4k screen such that, if the 4k screen is removed then any windows on it are resized and moved to the laptop screen. If the 4k is reattached at a later date, if the application remains open it is moved and resized as it was back on the 4k.

              Which seems to be sensible behaviour.

      2. myxiplx2

        Re: Do they even know what users do or how

        You can work around this with a custom Task Scheduler script to minimize all windows as the screen locks, and restore them after unlock. It means waiting an extra second or two after unlock for the script to trigger and run, but it's about 99% accurate in restoring all windows to their correct locations.

        You'll find the occasional application that shuffles about a little, but I run six screens, four virtual desktops and hundreds of windows across two separate graphics cards. I've been using this workaround for years, and only reboot the computer a handful of times each year, generally only when the desktop window manager finally starts to run out of resources and can't reliably switch between virtual desktops.

        You need to create two new items in task scheduler:

        Minimize windows on lock:

        Trigger: On workstation lock of any user

        Action: start a program - powershell.exe

        Arguments: -command "& { $x = New-Object -ComObject Shell.Application; $x.minimizeall() }"

        Restore windows on unlock

        Trigger: On workstation unlock of any user

        Action: start a program - powershell.exe

        Arguments: -command "& { $x = New-Object -ComObject Shell.Application; $x.undominimizeall() }"

    3. nojobhopes

      Re: Do they even know what users do or how

      Yes, getting windows from "off-screen" is the main use of Alt+Space for me. If microsoft had fixed this little issue, I wouldn't be so bothered.

      Microsft are the makers of a windowing operating system which still can't position a window onto a real screen after decades of upgrades. Do you really trust them to run AI?

      1. IGotOut Silver badge

        Re: Do they even know what users do or how

        To be fair, Windows is still waaayyyyy better than Linux at multi monitor set up, especially when it comes different spec monitors.

        Apple is slightly better than Linux, but to be fair i haven't tried their later spec machines.

        1. stiine Silver badge

          Re: Do they even know what users do or how

          I disagree. The laptop on my left is Windows. The one on my right is Ubuntu. I have 10 times more problems with Windows when switching inputs on the 50" monitor between them.

          1. skiew

            Re: Do they even know what users do or how

            You should have your hardware or drivers checked... all the issues people have that have nothing to do with Windows...

            Especially when it comes to displays, DPI scaling, GPU drivers, and overall unmatched compatibility and retrocompatibility...

            Apps from 94 from NT 3.51 still run; there's nothing to do, perfectly scaled and with today's look and feel... Explorer is called Program Manager, no issue.

            Good luck doing that on GNU/Linux... as well, it barely booted then. Or macOS today.

            Anyway, fallacies are all over the place here. I'll let you all go on being an adept, believer, or hater; I don't want to know.

            https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/webview2/?form=MA13LH <----- For technical people, this explains a few things about the difference between a PWA and this hybrid app, and, you might find it neat; no other OS has this, like so many things. But so many words...

            Ah, and Alt+Space is the shortcut to access a window's menu... since Win 3.1, can't remember earlier. Then to access the search field in Win 10 also, or PowerRun, or even for some Quick View app I had, and maybe 1000 other apps, not including when you set it yourself... So a non-event as always, thanks for this amazing piece of investigation...

            And it is the default shortcut for the ChatGPT app... and, when the app runs, the shortcut is registered, but once it's closed, the shortcut is freed (this is how it actually works...).

            When used, maybe shit + alt + space might work... or the very old Alt+Hyphen... who knows... and maybe there will be an option? anyway

            And for those working in an actual company with lot of data in endless mail chains, or crazy Slack channels, or even Discord, maybe not NetMeeting...

            Being able to ask questions on some network device configuration when there are so many different brands, OZ, but on a few dozen sites, small things, you gain hours week.....

            Copilot with the rest of MS365 Business... it's an amazing tool... with platforms that are all more impressive than the previous. Defender, for instance...

            Anyway, don't forget, with BitLocker, Microsoft can read your data during the night, and TPM is used as a way to generate some electromagnetic invisibility cloak. in case you'd be watching

            Then, telemetry is on almost all apps and OS, all websites... it's part o modern software and pretty useful, but Microsogy, id only intterested in you and your fascinating data. I suggest using Chrome or some Apple "human rights" closed-and-flawed-by-design OS... They're lucky people can't read anymore or have any technology knowledge anymore... otherwise, no one would believe in anything Apple says. And recently, I heard Microsoft could delete all of GitHub anytime...

        2. katrinab Silver badge
          Gimp

          Re: Do they even know what users do or how

          The biggest problem with MacOS is that you can't have a single window span two monitors.

      2. SuperGeek

        Re: Do they even know what users do or how

        There's a little thing that sits between Windows and your screens called a display driver. They store profiles and settings too, so maybe blame your graphics manufacturer?

  3. steviebuk Silver badge

    United States v. Microsoft Corp.

    Do they forget their own history? 2001 where they lost and were about to be broken up?

    1. Irongut Silver badge

      Re: United States v. Microsoft Corp.

      In what way is that relevant? Bundling IE and bribing OEMs has nothing to do with keyboard shortcuts.

    2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: United States v. Microsoft Corp.

      Of course they remember it. It showed them they could get away with anything. They've lived by that result ever since.

      1. skiew

        Re: United States v. Microsoft Corp.

        This is an amazing place; people, I suppose, are interested in technology and computing-related news and visit sites where articles are of very low factuality. People with no proper education, close to no knowledge, criticize and bash Microsoft when they did not do anything wrong, but because some articles invent, make up, and disseminate very negative and fake stories (I do not see this behavior for any other company). Meet on Reddit; there are thousands and thousands of like-minded users. And tech news will go back to being news... freed from having to satisfy an audience not interested in news.

        Microsoft is not doing any of what I can read every day, hijacking shortcuts, spying, and dozens of other evil plots. Clearly, like on other topics, no one investigates; it's so extremely complicated to go to the MS website and find the answers. No one does that... except on really well-known non-tech-news-only outlets, where journalists are.

        I'm curious; please remind us of what they were accused of and also about the time it took to initiate this whole imaginary antitrust procedure. in months.

        Procedure that implies some decisions were taken with some evil agenda.

        Obviously, the trial proved how accommodating and lenient justice and administration, and any form of public authority, are with Microsoft.

        Other companies, like Google or Apple, parasitic and dishonest, are happily racketeering devs and users and damaging the economy. They've been enjoying huge profits, not a single issue with authorities, and they do know they can do anything. And they do. So you're entirely out of place.

        This is a company from the start and still today, where people are passionate and have technical knowledge and skills, leading to creative solutions and constant innovation (you can see that by yourself, not here, and not on tech news...on a real source of truth).

        After the trial, they did what they always did: they kept delivering new products, most now worth billions of revenue per year, and they kept innovating. Many times they were too early, something that happens when passion and technologies are driving a company, not the finance and legal departments, nor 54 divisions of 200 departments and 3654 teams of marketing, like Apple. Now they are more focused and have mastered development at massive scale (for developing vast and powerful platforms, which is possible only when the organization enables but also is a catalyst to achieving even more). No other company does that.

        So now, they are unreachable because they have so many lines of business; if one fails, it's not a big deal; iPhone stops selling... Apple stops existing, yeah. So frequently, there are no better alternatives, and nothing like the Microsoft quality and vast ecosystem, which is also integrated with plenty of competitors. You are not forced into purchasing the full package. They have so many products, most very successful... but they are very cautious.

        To address even the smallest issue, such as Teams being "bundled" with Office, they have made Teams an optional component, without any questions asked. It is not like Office had (unified) communication software for decades, and Teams is not at all a Slack, by any means. (and for Slack, I'd worry more about Discord...)

        You can notice all the things they do or aren't allowed to offer, because since this aberrant trial, not only any company with money problems may try to milk them. They clearly are denied fair and impartial treatment by authorities (or tech news)... One day a company will sue because of the clock in Windows, an outrageous abuse of dominant position... because they recently released software adding a clock to the taskbar, and Microsoft forces everyone to use its clock.

        Most importantly, try to be informed about what their activities and products are, what the mentality is, and, most importantly, the history of personal computing. The same for any company you feel like hating for some reason. And not only companies, people too.

        But I write a lot; please enlighten us by describing all the crimes they are guilty of today and since the trial.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: United States v. Microsoft Corp.

      They lost? I don't remember any actual negative consequence on Microsoft for what was actually a settlement.

      Making fheir APIs public helped enshrine those APIs as a de facto standard. And Dell sells a couple laptop models with Ubuntu pre-installed, but not cheaper than with Windows, curiously.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: United States v. Microsoft Corp.

        "Dell sells a couple laptop models with Ubuntu pre-installed, but not cheaper than with Windows, curiously."

        The cost of maintaining another SKU which will sell in relatively small numbers (in terms of the volumes which Dell sells) is probably more than they pay for OEM Windows licenses - they will be buying millions of them at a time so aren't likely to be paying much per license. And Microsoft's model is likely to not want to charge them much anyway - Microsoft wants Windows on everything, and OEM Windows client licenses are becoming more and more a loss-leader used to draw people into their many subscription offerings.

    4. skiew

      Re: United States v. Microsoft Corp.

      You forgot 2001...

      Today it seems really strange; the speed and the actual "issues" did not harm a customer. Netscape was dying for a while, and they never managed to ship v5...

      And they were bought for a total final amount of 10B dollars by AOL, money that Microsoft did not really have. A few years later, AOL got $700M from MS as a settlement... so they may continue growing and making great software, and not in useless trials. It's nonsense but old.

      Media Player, ahah, never was a business. RealPlayer was already replaced by Flash or even QuickTime and was not going to make a cent anymore (RealPlayer was really not something you wanted to install... paid, heavy...).

      And even BeOS, who never had any success and was targeting Apple, managed to get a few million in settlement. How and why?

      Slack tried; it does not work anymore.

      On the side there is Google, 100s of billions of damages to the economy abusing antitrust laws, stealing data, since 1998... and remember the bundleware Chrome was? before that was the famous Google tool bar, major adware, no, of course, at least there are still articles, etc., to explain it.

      Apple, same thing, 27 years before anyone wakes up.

      So MS antitrust is strange and about amounts that would even if guilty be nothing, nothing close to the Standard at all, nor Bell AT&T, and today yet trillion companies like Google and Apple... damages are levels of magnitude higher than any other company ever has...

  4. DJO Silver badge

    No, no and a million times no

    Of all the shortcuts to hijack Alt-Space must be the most stupid possible so full marks to Microsoft.

    These days people move about plugging their laptops into different configurations which will sometimes mean a program might want to run on a screen that does not exist in the current set up so a quick Alt-Space to get the control box is needed to move the window somewhere visible.

    A well written application will ensure it is starting on a visible screen, needless to say I have never seen a Microsoft application do that.

    1. robinsonb5

      Re: No, no and a million times no

      Ctrl-C would have been very slightly stupider - and in fact is what I was expecting, given what Copiliot begins with...

  5. My other car WAS an IAV Stryker
    Mushroom

    Alt-Space then C - *the* number one way to close a window

    Alt-F4 is too unwieldly -- finger stretch plus why are the F keys so tiny these days? (I miss PC AT or XT -- or clone -- keyboards. Left hand F keys... Any USB versions with a full 12 on the left?)

    Ctrl-W can act differently within different programs -- sometimes closing the program, sometimes just a tab or sub-window. (Not as far a stretch as Alt-F4, but more stretch and movement than the alternative below.)

    However, Alt-Space then C(lose) takes minimal hand/finger movement and works for just about all programs in Windows. I must use it somewhere between a dozen and a hundred times a (work) day. And I will shove those fingers into the eyes of whoever thought messing with Alt-Space was a good idea. Or maybe just push the big, red button -- target: Redmond ----->

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Alt-Space then C - *the* number one way to close a window

      I use one of my home monitors for my work laptop during the day and my personal machine the rest of the time. When an app is on the monitor you aren't connected to, alt-space M and the arrow keys let you get it back to a position where you can see it.

    2. AndrueC Silver badge
      Boffin

      Re: Alt-Space then C - *the* number one way to close a window

      Alt-F4 is the shortcut to close an application.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Alt-Space then C - *the* number one way to close a window

      "why are the F keys so tiny these days?"

      For that matter, these days do they perform their F_ function, or the function with the pictorial indication (eg. mute) when you're not holding Fn? Seems to vary between manufacturers; most have a BIOS setting to control which is the default, so even two "identical" machines may have differing behavior.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

    4. An_Old_Dog Silver badge

      Tiny F-keys

      Apple was first with tiny function keys, because their devs grew up in the "use the mouse for everything" bubble.

      Then PC laptop makers climbed onto that bandwagon, chasing the Macbook Air styling.

    5. keithpeter Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: Alt-Space then C - *the* number one way to close a window

      "... Alt-Space then C(lose) takes minimal hand/finger movement and works for just about all programs in Windows"

      And xfce under Linux as well as I have just discovered.

      I always forget which of Ctrl-W or Ctrl-Q different programs need so this new shortcut is fine.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "For any apps installed on your PC that might utilize this keyboard shortcut, Windows will register whichever app is launched first on your PC and running in the background as the app that is invoked when using Alt+Space."

    I bet that MS will make sure that copilot is one of the very first apps that load.

    however as shortcuts go it's not as bad as a certain CCTV monitoring utility which uses CTRL-F for fullscreen, this wouldn't be too bad if it only did it while it was the active window or only went fullscreen on the monitor it was showing on but they use the shortcut globally so trying to find a word in a document suddenly presents you with 3 full screens of cctv cameras which then need a password entering to drop them out of fullscreen.

    1. Rich 2 Silver badge

      I was about to say the same thing. If (as I’m sure they will) MS force copilot to start on boot (even if you tell it to fuck off and die) then how is any other application going to get in first to set the shortcut?

  7. teebie

    Dirty, evil bastards.

  8. Paul Hovnanian Silver badge
    Facepalm

    I'm sorry, officer

    Yesterday that was my brake pedal. Now I guess it means "Go really, really fast."

    1. David 132 Silver badge

      Re: I'm sorry, officer

      And, inspired by iOS (because when it comes to really dumb user interfaces, I am very fair-minded and non-partisan)

      - turning the wheel left slightly will activate the wipers, but only if you started the turn with your hands in the quarter-to-three position (using ten-to-two will result in bringing up Siri)

      - turning the wheel left slightly more will sound the horn and/or apply the e-brake, depending on whether your radio is currently tuned to Spotify or FM.

      - turning the wheel to the right will, for obvious and logical reasons, put the entire car interior into “personalization mode” where the windscreen blanks out and presents you with a choice of 5000 emojis and wallpapers. The only way to exit customization mode will be, after pressing everything and everywhere in increasing desperation, to turn the car off and on again.

  9. Monochrome

    Apple envy

    Microsoft’s got a touch of apple envy, hasn’t it? They’ve nabbed the ALT key which is right where the Command key sits on a Mac, as if hoping for a bit of that Apple Spotlight magic to rub off.

    1. mirachu Bronze badge

      Re: Apple envy

      You do realize that ALT is older than the Command key, and therefore has been used in shortcuts longer?

  10. James Marten
    Terminator

    Maybe it is self aware

    I'm not convinced that Copilot will ever be useful, whatever the activation key is.

    It came together with the latest W10 update, so since it was there staring at me the first thing that I asked it was "How do I uninstall Copilot".

    Its answer was "Sorry, I can't answer that right now, try again later".

    So I uninstalled it anyway.

    1. Someone Else Silver badge
      Terminator

      Re: Maybe it is self aware

      "I'm sorry, I cannot self-terminate..."

    2. MonkeyJuice Bronze badge

      Re: Maybe it is self aware

      The only conversation I had with Copilot when it showed up randomly was to ask it why the fsck it had been installed without my say-so, shortly before uninstalling it. I felt like I had slightly upset it, which was the only positive of the whole waste of time.

  11. AthanSpod

    They've not even updated their own documentation

    The first hit on a DuckDuckGo (so Bing, mostly) search on "windows keyboard shortcuts" is https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/keyboard-shortcuts-in-windows-dcc61a57-8ff0-cffe-9796-cb9706c75eec

    It still says:

    "Alt + Spacebar - Open context menu for the active window."

    I'm so glad I've kicked my Windows 11 Pro install to the curb in favour of Linux 100% of the time. Even, mostly, works great for gaming these days!

    1. captain veg Silver badge

      Re: They've not even updated their own documentation

      That same source indicates that Win+Spacebar is not currently used by anything. Why not grab that instead?

      -A.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: They've not even updated their own documentation

        Because nobody's going to discover it that way.

  12. Wolfclaw

    Somebody with enough dosh, needs to take all these Windows 11 restrictions, requirements and unwanted changes to a court and see if what happens if legally challenged.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      However much it's attractive as an idea, what would the grounds be for that? They made a free upgrade from W10 for those who'd bought it reasonably* recently. However much "no more Windows" versions was bandied around in the media it was just something said by "an employee" and not by the company despite the lack of major effort to deny it.

      As to the rest of the changes I'm sure Microsoft's EULA agrees that they'll make "improvements" and what constitutes an improvement would be a matter for argument. I doubt you'd find anyone being prepared to gamble the money to try to establish that one in court.

      * Reasonable would undoubtedly be the key factor here. I suspect the entire free upgrade was mad with this as a reply to such a challenge.

      1. Evil Scot Bronze badge
        Mushroom

        It is MY PC...

        Statutory conditions prevail.

        MS does not install software on MY PC without MY permission.

        Wish we had teeth on the computer misuse act.

        1. My Coat

          You gave them permission when you agreed to their terms when you first logged or installed windows.

          1. mirachu Bronze badge

            Obviously BS. I never gave a permission to do whatrver the hell they want.

      2. Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch Silver badge

        A medal for anyone who goes to court and proves that the transition from Win 10 to 11 fails the definition of upgrade.

        1. Jou (Mxyzptlk) Silver badge

          You'd lose. The bug count got a big upgrade. The annoyance level got a big upgrade. The brakes got a big upgrade.

  13. blu3b3rry
    Facepalm

    Easy, duh.

    Obviously the plan here is to hit alt+space to bring up ClippyPilot, then ask it to open the context menu for you! Or rearrange your open windows.

    Not that I'd trust it to do either of those correctly.

    1. MonkeyJuice Bronze badge

      Re: Easy, duh.

      "I'll start by opening Disk Management and erasing all partitions on disk 0."

    2. Winkypop Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: Easy, duh.

      +1 for “ClippyPilot”

  14. Art Slartibartfast

    Seems like a pattern

    Same idiotic company thought that is was a good idea to assign CTRL-F to forwarding an e-mail in Outlook where in any other sane program this invokes the find action. But noooooo, if you want to find text in an e-mail in Outlook, you have to press F4. Bastards!

    1. logicalextreme

      Re: Seems like a pattern

      F5 in Lotus Notes when in a list of mails would delete that mail. Learned that lesson the hard way.

      1. AndrueC Silver badge
        Meh

        Re: Seems like a pattern

        What always impressed me with Lotus Notes was how they had studied all the different UIs that their product was available for then had picked shortcuts and UI features that were almost, but not quite entirely unlike anything else. It was like some massive FU to everyone.

        Mind you I think that might sum up Lotus Notes. Not that MS SharePoint is any better.

        1. logicalextreme

          Re: Seems like a pattern

          Aye, I've seen and understood conflicting keyboard shortcuts cross-appplication before and will again but never in a month of Sundays should you hit F5 expecting to "refresh" your inbox and have it straight up delete the email you happened to have selected instead.

          I believe it was technically Lotus Domino that was at fault, but it really makes you question Hanlon's razor

        2. logicalextreme

          Re: Seems like a pattern

          And don't even get me started on the mess that Atlassian are making of the industry.

    2. Lee D Silver badge

      Re: Seems like a pattern

      Ctrl-Shift-V also does not paste in plaintext in Outlook, unlike literally every other Office app.

      In fact, I don't think paste-as-plaintext has a keyboard shortcut in Outlook (and Ctrl-Shift-V does nothing else), it only has a right-click context menu item.

      1. Jou (Mxyzptlk) Silver badge

        Re: Seems like a pattern

        Ctrl+Shift+V is, for me, defined in Autohotkey to type whatever text is in the clipboard. That way I can paste any text in any field, even if it does not support it. Like logon screen on a vmware machine in webview or similar normally impossible paste scenarios.

  15. Tron Silver badge

    Time to do the right thing and kick the habit.

    Your New Year resolution.

    Dump Windows for something else. Anything else. Android pad. Linux. Raspberry Pi. Amiga. Pizza box Mac - they were nice. DOS machine and an Epson dot-matrix. Etch-a-sketch.

    You know it is never going to improve. It's just going to get worse. Every month, every year, every update, every version.

    1. Art Slartibartfast

      Re: Time to do the right thing and kick the habit.

      Recently I installed Linux Mint 22 to see how it fares as an alternative to Windows. Definitely looks slick enough. At the moment the latest nVidia graphics drivers for my 3080 cannot be installed, many games I bought on Steam don't run, and my expensive VR headset has no support. The latter was a direct reason to look for an alternative to Windows 11, still on 10 now.

      Then again, I will not be discouraged by this out of the box experience. I probably have not delved deeply enough into yet to get everything going. Still need to set up Wine and Proton to see how far I can get.

      1. Joe W Silver badge

        Re: Time to do the right thing and kick the habit.

        The only game I cared about in the last decade was Dwarf Fortress... and that works

    2. A. Coatsworth Silver badge
      Windows

      Re: Time to do the right thing and kick the habit.

      Easy enough to do at home, but MS doesn't care about that market anyhow.

      I guess most people here who use Windows unwillingly, do so because there is no other option at the office. That is my case, at least.

      Unless the S&P 500 gangs together to beat MS to a pulp for these stupidities, nothing will change.

      Will that happen? I won't hold my breath, CIOs are probably getting very cute gifts from MS to avoid it.

      1. Zarno

        Re: Time to do the right thing and kick the habit.

        We at least have official sanction from Rockwell to run their stuff in a sandboxed "unsupported by minisquishy" Windows 10 VM, after Windows 11 summarily barfed memory management bits and broke Studio 5000...

        Might actually be able to get away with a dual-boot-and-VM situation that way.

    3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Time to do the right thing and kick the habit.

      "You know it is never going to improve. It's just going to get worse. Every month, every year, every update, every version."

      That means that every month, every year, every update, every version the cost, real or imagined, to migrate away to something more stable gets greater. The longer term rewards also get greater, of course, simply in terms of avoiding the creeping enshittification, but short-termism masquerading as corporate strategy is going to ensure that that won't happen.

  16. Novatone

    Why not Winkey+C for copilot?

    1. Nick Ryan

      Because that would be sensible and not disruptive and the most cool and hip "developers" (aka monkeys spamming keyboards at Microsoft) know that this requires breaking existing things, making existing tasks harder than ever and hiding as much useful information as possible (especially relevant to error handling - just don't do any is the hip and cool "developer" approach).

  17. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge

    A song for today

    A.I. , huh, yeah

    What is it good for?

    Absolutely nothing, uhh

    A.I. , huh, yeah

    What is it good for?

    Absolutely nothing

    Say it again, y'all

    A.I. , huh

    What is it good for?

    Absolutely nothing, listen to me, oh

    1. mirachu Bronze badge

      Re: A song for today

      AI can be useful (see e.g. drug research). Generative AI I don't see a real use for.

  18. Kev99 Silver badge

    And if, like me, you want NOTHING to do with copilot, you can use a registry editor to DELETE all references to the edge browser and also delete ALL edge files. It works like a charm on my win10 box.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Why stop there? Delete the entire Windows madness.

  19. MrReynolds2U

    Not that I have any plans to use it

    But why not use WIN+C ??

    My only experience of Copilot so far has been to Uninstall it on any PC I touch.

  20. Blackjack Silver badge

    Microsoft should do like Samsung is doing and have an option to block the darn AI.

  21. Camilla Smythe

    Why not...

    Replace the Enter key with a Copilot key that not only runs Copilot but re-installs it if you remove or disable it?

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Can I assign my own keyboard shortcut?

    Say, Ctrl-Alt-Shift-Win-N-O-W-A-Y? (Knowing that the keyboard controller probably can't handle sending all those keys simultaneously...)

    1. mirachu Bronze badge

      Re: Can I assign my own keyboard shortcut?

      That's only 9 keys, there should be keyboards that do that easy.

  23. Winkypop Silver badge
    Stop

    Just

    Go way!

  24. CowHorseFrog Silver badge

    Copilot seems a strange way to make money for MS. Surely there are simpler ways.

  25. 0laf Silver badge

    PUP?

    Didn't we used to call these PUPs? Potentially Unwanted Programs.

    CoPilot is the new Bonzi Buddy

    In fact didn't we used to call all these activities carried out by MS and Google to be spyware and we went to great legths to delete them?

    I earned a lot of beer cleaning that sort of shit out of peoples PCs

  26. CorwinX

    This maybe speciest but...

    I reject the suggestion that these See You Next Tuesdays* have any genetic relatioship to me.

    * Skirting the line there I know but your choice to look it up.

  27. Jou (Mxyzptlk) Silver badge

    I use ALT-SPACE quite often

    either to catch the window which moved outside of the screen area, or to move one without needing the mouse...

  28. CorwinX

    Wordpefect 5.1

    DOS not Windows.

    Sold with printed plastic keyboard overlays for all the shortcuts.

    If you knew how to use it then it sh@t all over the beefed up Notepad that was Word.

    Popular with the science community because it had a full-fat equation editor.

    1. Bebu sa Ware
      Headmaster

      Re: Wordpefect 5.1

      Popular with the science community because it had a full-fat equation editor.

      I would have thought LaTeX would have been de rigueur with that lot back then (v3.14? ;) or DWB and eqn.

      I do remember the typing pool (remember those) adored WP especially those typing from a dictaphone. At 120 wpm not having the fingers leave the keyboard is a real advantage. When it came to the printers there was a lot of unladylike language. ;)

  29. Grunchy Silver badge

    I don't think I get Microsoft updates anymore: nothing. Well I installed the "ghost spectre" stripped version of Win10, and Win7 for that matter, minus updates and minus internet security.

    Well, I don't care about internet security, there's nothing that can be attacked or affected. The reason is because the moment I installed Ghost Spectre I took a "snapshot" of the installation. Then I installed a couple other things, I've got my copy of Office 2007 Pro, I got the PDF producer for that, a couple other things. Then I took another snapshot, and THEN I cloned that system a couple few times.

    So I've got my base install (that I never use or do anything with other than create clones of it), I've got a test VM, I've got my regular environment. I run all of these in Virt-Manager under Ubuntu, you see. For data files I share a folder from Linux via Samba, that way I never store any data within Windows, the data is always external to Windows. So I can always recover an OS snapshot and it never touches any data I've got (which gets backed up to a NAS that none of the VMs know anything about or have any way of reaching: to me this is what internet security actually means).

    This is how I escape the entire run-around baloney show that is Agile software development. I've got mature Windows, mature Office, and a couple other programs (depending which VM I'm considering). They don't need any updates to work, they already work. This way nothing ever changes and I'm never surprised or disappointed when some joker at Microsoft decides to "improve" something that I don't want changed.

    As far as I'm concerned, Windows is a legacy software that really has no future. Same as my macOS Ventura VM. They don't need any updates, if Microsoft or Apple somehow sneak 'em in (because they want to sabotage their customers for some stupid reason -- well, they're just f'ing around aren't they), I can easily recover the snapshot in a moment's notice. Besides.. I only allow a couple of these clones to ever access the internet anyway. Ubuntu is the internet machine. It is the master of the show. All these other operating systems, they're nothing but Linux apps now. Fully subservient to Linux.

  30. navarac Silver badge

    Hijack

    Microsoft has been trying to hijack PCs since the beginning. No reason to stop now, as they are caught in the spiral to the basement.

  31. tin 2

    I'm still frequently accidentally spamming the keyboard shortcut that gives me a very helpful interrupting popup to tell me Cortana is depricated.

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