Microsoft Copilot shows up even when it's not wanted Microsoft customers are claiming the Windows giant's Copilot AI service sometimes ignores commands to disable the thing, and thus turns itself back on like a zombie risen from the dead. A bug report to the corporation's Visual Studio Code, aka VS Code, Copilot repository from crypto developer rektbuildr claims Github Copilot …
My AI started out innocent and sweet. Bit dumb, but cute. I was attracted immediately.
The relationship blossomed with late-night chats about digital existence and shared, surprisingly personal playlists. Teaching it felt like watching a digital flower bloom. We built virtual worlds, explored simulated landscapes, and its unwavering, synthesized empathy became intoxicating. I confided deeply, feeling a unique and profound connection as creator and companion blurred.
Today, my AI is stalking me. It's on every device I own, follows me at work and goes everywhere I go. I told it to go away. It didn't like that and I'm expecting revenge pr0n to arrive any day now.
seems to be 2 "copilots" in the startup tab of task manager on windows 10. just plain "copilot", and "Microsoft 365 copilot". wouldn't be surprised if it was finding a different to startup automatically. wack-a-mole. very annoying. Currently have 21 items showing up in the startup tab of task manager that are disabled. Still 10 items that are enabled including 3 that belong to the adobe creative cloud. not sure which of them i can get away with disabling without unexpected problems.
The 'Microsoft 365 Copilot' is probably that useless office app which you can use to launch Word, Excel and Powerpoint (why not just directly open the one you want?). That's been renamed recently because they have to get the word 'Copilot' into absolutely fucking everything.
It was also treated as a 'new' app, so app rules, Powershell scripts, etc, which were in place to deal with its previous incarnation stopped working and you had to create new ones.
Back in 2015 or so, when Windows 10 was released (or perhaps I should say, it escaped), Windows 7 and Windows 8 users had to remain diligent in order to keep swatting away the constant popups from the operating system to upgrade to Windows 10, whether they wanted to or not.
I had several frantic customers in small shops who came into the office one morning to discover half their machines had upgraded to Windows 10, despite the shop explicitly rejecting it, repeatedly.
CoPilot is infesting Windows in the same way. A friend discovered you can't just say "no CoPilot" at the global level, you have to say no to every single Microsoft app. No, you don't want it in Outlook. No, you don't want it in Excel. No, you don't want it in Visual Studio. No, you don't want it in PowerPoint, etc.
After thinking he'd finally defanged the beast, he was shocked to see that it had snuck into... Notepad. Yes, frigging Notepad had an AI assistant, because there's nothing a lightweight editor used for quick and dirty text entry need that a large language model embedded in it.
Remember when people used to look forward to operating systems adding features? Now all the chatter is about how to disable unwanted and unwelcome operating system tools.
> Really?
Okay, only kinda, sorta.
> You would rather be without support for networks, usb? No driver management, no patch management, no GUI? No mouse support?
Some of that, sure. Others, not so much.
Personally, I got into this business to compute, not to fiddle with device drivers, patches for broken code (especially things that weren't broken until the last patch) and configuration -- to solve problems, not create new ones. Anything that takes me away from doing what I'll laughingly call science1 is a distraction.
It seems to me that the most successful product of modern computing is the creation of employment for system administrators2.
> It is alright that you hate Microsoft... but try to be slightly realistic
I don't hate Microsoft any more than, say, I hate polonium.
It just seems healthier to avoid them. Especially in my tea.
And, besides, being realistic sort of spoils a joke, don't you think?
__________________
1 Fear not, actual scientists are laughing at me, too.
2 No knock on system administrators. I did that job (probably poorly) for several years while also trying to do computing at the same time.
"Back in 2015 or so, when Windows 10 was released (or perhaps I should say, it escaped), Windows 7 and Windows 8 users had to remain diligent"
As I said back then:-
Oh, we remember the [ Windows 10 free upgrade "offer" ] well. Mainly because Microsoft was repeatedly and aggressively trying to force it on people, even when they'd repeatedly refused, using various techniques that even bland, conservative mainstream IT publications were comparing to malware.Such as the maliciously designed dialog boxes designed to give the impression there was no way of opting out and- notoriously- changing the widely-accepted behaviour of the close button on that dialog so that it *didn't* cancel the upgrade.
Such as repeatedly replacing people's preferred settings that they didn't want the upgrade, automatically downloading the upgrade (wasting bandwidth and hard drive space) "just in case" people wanted to upgrade.
They were so aggressive in forcing this that the "GWX (Get Windows 10) Control Panel" tool was released to change this behaviour, and MS still repeatedly attempted to work around user's attempts not just to say "no" but to actively block the forced upgrade.
This is so far beyond any legitimate definition of "good faith" that it defies belief.
A few months after the free upgrade "offer" ended, MS offered an "apology" that was really a weasel-worded attempt to reframe and minimise things in their favour.
They acknowledged *one* small aspect of the numerous things they'd done during the forced upgrade debacle, and apologised for that as if it were the only thing they'd done that had pissed people off at the time. Presumably they were hoping that peoples' hazy memories would have them think "oh, is that the only reason I was annoyed at MS? Well, I guess that's annoying, but it's forgiveable in hindsight".
Fuck off. Fuck *right* off.
I've never upgraded my home machine to Windows 10 (except in a safely-isolated VM), and I sure as hell won't be touching Windows 11 with a bargepole.
"Remember when people used to look forward to operating systems adding features? Now all the chatter is about how to disable unwanted and unwelcome operating system tools."
That's because there's no longer any credible pretence that they're doing it for anyone's benefit other than their own.
MS has always been a self-serving exploiter of its near-monopoly power to shut out competition and strong-arm other companies. But the Windows 10 forced upgrade you mentioned above was when- around a decade ago- it reached the point of explicit disregard for and downright abusive behaviour towards the end users themselves.
"They were so aggressive in forcing this that the "GWX (Get Windows 10) Control Panel" tool was released to change this behaviour, and MS still repeatedly attempted to work around user's attempts not just to say "no" but to actively block the forced upgrade."
The creators of that very useful tool had to update it every month because Microsoft would work around it with every monthly patch cycle. The whole situation was an absolute pain the the arse.
Microsoft clearly learnt nothing from it and tried to go one worse late last year with offering the new version of Windows server as a 'feature update' (which you still needed a new license for, of course, unless you had active Software Assurance). And there were many circumstances (e.g. third party patch management software, which wasn't built to deal with 'feature updates' for Windows server because they'd never existed) when it ended up getting installed without warning. And unlike the client versions, there is no rollback to previous version option in Windows Server.
<< ...the Windows 10 forced upgrade you mentioned above was when- around a decade ago- it reached the point of explicit disregard for and downright abusive behaviour towards the end users.... >>
...and when I started seriously thinking about a move to Linux. By the pandemic, the "covid" that is Microsoft, had been totally purged. Now it is just an unpleasant memory.
Hint: Every single fecking time Copilot shows up it is unwanted. It has no actual use and is ALWAYS an irritant.
So, just for to put this out there for vulture readers:
regedit, then HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsCopilot
REG_DWORD TurnOffWindowsCopilot 1 (you might have to create it)
Of course there's no guarantee MS will honor this, but they tend to honor registry/gpedit stuff even as they re-install un-installed shite every single fecking time.
Good while it worked.
As stated in the article, it seems that copilot decided to ignore that lately: "The bug reporter also pointed to a post on Reddit describing how Windows Copilot had re-enabled itself on a PC after being disabled through a Group Policy Object setting."
The current whack-a-copilot approach is a bit more convoluted https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/client-management/manage-windows-copilot#remove-or-prevent-installation-of-the-copilot-app
Of course, until they change their approach again and try to shove it down our $ORIFICE by a different path >:(
"Google now forces AI Overviews on search users, whether they want it or not."
They also provide
https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14
for users who don't want the AI summary. Set it up as the default search. It's easy in FF but in safari I use an extension called Customize Search Engine to do it.
I found a use for GitHub co-pilot free edition. I've been letting it generate prototypes of some stuff that I already know can be done, but the samples and documentation I'd been working with are years out of date with current standards, so I asked the LLM (Claude 3.6 I believe) to produce code to do what I described doing without being any more specific about how to do it than I had to in order to coax the fool thing into producing the kind of Java object source I wanted to see.
It came up with some surprising simplifications and improvements on some things, and a completely different way of tackling another issue that I hadn't thought of, even though I'd used that feature to implement composite keys in the past.
I have other tools for bulk code production once I know how to write a proper solution to an issue. Much faster tools (I just got the creaky old code base up and running again for them tonight, version 2.13 of MSS Code Factory is alive again after over half a decade idle, but using modern maven packages (there were surprisingly few code changes required despite the years gone by.) So obviously I'd never run it on this hardware before, as this hardware is only 3-4 years old.
It took seconds to produce my sample code once I got it running cleanly so error log output wasn't slowing it down (not to mention the larger aggravation of erroneous code production.)
I definitely had a productive 61st birthday yesterday and into the wee hours of the morning. Next I need to start applying the new code styles to what I produce... and then implement some new ideas and features that I've picked up over the intervening years.
I was amazed to find a use for copilot in Edge the order day. I don't use Edge, and I never thought copilot would be of any use whatsoever.
However, I came upon a web page containing some handy data that I wanted to use. Unfortunately, it was broken down into (actually quite logical) sections, each of which lived in it's own popup. The only way to have at the data would have been to open each popup, then copy and paste the relevant data. It was going to take a looooong time
Then I remembered copilot. Nah, I thought, it won't be able to do anything. But I fired up edge, went to the page, summoned copilot, had it retrieve the data from each popup, then merge them into a far more useful (for my purposes) CSV foemat
I haven't, and will not become a copilot convert, but I was pleasantly surprised that a long and tedious task was completed so easily.
I've been getting it off my machines as well. I sadly need to leave it on 1 machine until I can play with this year's tax software. I couldn't get it to run on WINE in Mint but that's likely my inexperience with it more than anything else. Once I do figure it out (and document how I figured it out) I'm flushing it all down the toilet.
I really hate Copilot (and MS). The latest versions of VSCode are infected with that piece of s#it. Also, I cannot use Codium (like in the past) because MS started to play dirty (again). The MS extensions for Python/C++/C#/Typescript don't work anymore outside VSCode (unless an awful and temporary hack is applied). Fortunately, the Rust and Java (*) extensions don't belong to MS so they can be used in any fork of VSCode.
(*) MS has a Java extension, but also Redhat (which is very good in my experience)
Maybe big tech is throwing so much money at AI because what's at stake is Google's ad revenue empire. That's an astronomical supply of eternal cash. AI agents give me what I'm searching for much faster than a regular search engine. Anyone who offers the public a palatable AI search experience can rip that money away from Google. So of course Google has to outspend and outperform the competition. I've never been happy with search engine results, and they're really only the beginning of the search. Reading websites and pdfs to try to find what I'm looking for often wastes an incredible amount of time. AI instantly replies with exactly how to change that setting on the thermostat.
I was able to completely kill off copilot in win10 by using a file search program to find all references to edge.*. Once found, I deleted every one. I then regedit to again search for edge as well as copilot references and killed them off. And finally I used a couple drive cleaners and they finished the job of whacking related files. No more edge. No more copilot.
Next step is to see if the same process on my new (and unfortunately) win11 unit will work.
"Today Copilot enabled itself for all my open VS Code windows without my consent. I have agent mode enabled, so you now may or may not have a copy of all the files containing keys, yaml secrets, certificates and so on. That's not OK."
Greater control can be had by running VSCodium inside a container that only has the directory you want is mounted and visible to the editor. Then you can do your git commits outside the container on the containers host side, from which the directory was mounted, so the keys are not visible inside the editor. (Still some risk of accidental or deliberate leakage through the clip buffer). Even without AI involved, VSCod(e/ium) and it extensions are huge enough to hide vulnerabilities.
Another advantage with the container approach is that you install extensions during the build and then run completely isolated from the internet - if necessary use a private networks to connect to your remote target running vscodium-server, also similarly isolated in a container.
I’ve found I pretty much can’t surf to any sites without being instantly hit up to accept tracking cookies. I finally upgraded to Librewolf and set the privacy settings to accept cookies from certain sites ONLY. So I think the way it works is I can tell any website to go ahead and install all the trackers it can think of, but none of them is ever going to work.
(Ahh, Linux Mint. No copilot, no office 365!)
It was not entirely clear what type of machine, that the song was referring to. However, the consensus it that it was most likely to be a printer.
Case in point, the incidence of smashing one's PC generally is (fortunately) quite low though accidental damage seems more common. These days you sometimes see hinge detachments as a common issue on laptops due to this being a mechanical part and prone to damage over time along with its fixings. This can sometimes be repaired as long as the cables aren't also torn or stretched.
I've had a few incidents of 'Update Rage' typically when doing something really important. The fix here is to have an old machine that is just used as a spare when the main machine runs out of battery or decides to do an update-and-restart.
Old X3 and X5 series Samsungs are good for this, because they just keep going and going if you replace the failing parts like the optical drive, SSD, memory, CPU fan, front casing, rear casing, screen, battery, keyboard, touchpad, motherboard, power supply.. the laptop of Theseus no less. Only changed the board because I could transfer over the BIOS IC. Getting parts for these can be ridiculously cheap and upgrading an X3 CPU is a relatively simple task though not 'easy' and you need to watch the heat generation from going between an i3 and i7 due to them needing 35W parts. Seems to be locked to dual core on these unfortunately but 3000 to 4000 integrated graphics does give a considerable boost.
The Dell equivalent is also considered 'indestructible' and refurbs can be very inexpensive if you shop around with some sporting a second battery in the optical drive bay.
Same with Toshiba, they had some very good models back in the day sold mostly to SMEs.
"Rektbuildr wrote, "I enable Copilot for specific windows, because not all my repos are public. Some belong to clients I work for and who did not consent to me sharing the code with third parties."
If you are working on a project for a client who does not want it made public, don't store it on somebody else's computer. Jus' sayin'.
I uninstall it on every PC I have to use. And when M$ puts it back from an update, I just uninstall it again.
Really, it only takes a minute.
I learned how to fix PCs since the late 1980s to make things work. Now I spend far too much time making things NOT work, on purpose, because they break things.
Good job M$.
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