Copilot can replace Search in latest Windows 11 test builds, but it's not a good idea

With Microsoft cramming Copilot into every nook and cranny of its software, it’s no surprise that everyone’s favorite AI assistant is now set to take over the search box. As of the latest Windows Insider Dev and Beta builds, the "Ask Copilot anything" box is available if you know how to switch it on. Though it’s off by default …

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would we want to enable the Copilot box? And why would you unpack *anything* to system drive's root if you can avoid it?

[Billy Twillig]

Indeed

“That, detective, is the right question.”

[Snowy]

Though it’s off by default,

For now, give it time and it will be on by default.

[IGotOut]

Re: Though it’s off by default,

On by default, requiring registry hacks to disable.

Hacks that are removed with every update.

[Throatwarbler Mangrove]

JFC

On my Android phone, I found that Copilot had been automatically enabled for Teams and Outlook, which yielded an incredibly annoying suggestion box on top of whatever I happened to be typing. It's basically auto-complete but much more intrusive and less useful. And, of course, one has to disable the "feature" in each Microsoft app separately.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Avram Piltch

Should have put "Avram Piltch" into the search box to find out what Copilot may have been willing to divulge about him

[Dwarf]

Productivity

Imagine how much more productive everyone would be if we didn't have to fight the endless stream of "product changes" (not improvements) that seem to be as annoying as possible to turn off.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: Productivity

Imagine if the Microsoft "UX" team were Nuclear scientists. Practical Nuclear Fusion power generation would be yesterday's news.

Current Nuclear Fusion scientists should become Microsoft UX team members. Then we can look forward to the next iteration and features to Windows "in the next 10 years"

[Eric 9001]

Re: Productivity

Nobody needs to - if you run LiGNUx, most things really haven't changed for no good reason in 30 years - Emacs, grep, sed, awk, find, nano, ed's, tar and everything else have the same interface and thus the user only needs to learn once.

Even for unhelpful breakages like wayland, you can just not install wayland and keep using Xorg.

[blu3b3rry]

Ask CoPilot anything

I'm not sure that extends to "Can uninstall yourself from my computer and remove all M$ spyware while you're at it?"

It genuinely feels like Microsoft are trying to find more and more reasons for people to not use Windows 11.

[Eric 9001]

Re: Ask CoPilot anything

Boiling the water until it turns into superheated steam is exactly what they are doing.

They've now realized that, no matter how far they go, people who still use windows, aren't going to stop using it and are ready to take all of any new abuse that can be dreamed up.

[Dan 55]

Ask OpenShell anything instead

It'll give you search results which aren't completely useless.

[Nematode]

God, I'm glad I've retired and can do or not do what I want.

[ColonelClaw]

Serious question - when was the last time Microsoft added a big new feature that anyone here actually wanted, or was excited about? The answer is not jumping out at me.

[Eric 9001]

That would be the windows GUI on top of DOS (November 20, 1985) - as despite how GUI's existed before, that was clearly exciting for those who previously suffered with the command line interface of MS-Dirty Operating System (almost the worst one ever implemented).

[ABugNamedJune]

If something doesn't work, make it worse

God damn, already when I search appwiz.cpl it'll just search "appwiz.cpl 1" on bing, I can't wait until I'm trying to quickly yank something from a user's computer and I'm going to get a six-paragraph tutorial on how to use control panel from a chat bot.

[Handlebars]

Would be nice if just search worked. It's hopelessly slow and unreliable even when I'm in a subfolder.

[Eric 9001]

`find -name '*file*'` or `locate file` does work great on my machine.