Microsoft sets Copilot agents loose on your OneDrive files

Microsoft has made OneDrive agents generally available, allowing users to query multiple documents simultaneously through Copilot instead of just one at a time. Users can select up to 20 files and create an agent, saved as a .agent file in OneDrive. Rather than teasing information out of individual documents, Microsoft says …

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows' Search

Pity Microsoft don't seem to want to put any effort into normal Windows' search. I can often see the file in front of me, yet search still fails to find it.

[The Oncoming Scorn]

Re: Windows' Search

Somebody borked Search sometime after XP.

Icon - Win 8 I'm looking at you.

[Mike 137]

Re: Windows' Search

There's an excellent alternative called Agent Ransack

[Art Slartibartfast]

Re: Windows' Search

Absolutely, been using it for quite some while now. Does not do the whole search over, just because you want the results sorted differently, unlike Explorer.

[a.b]

Re: Windows' Search

And 'Everything' by Voidtools

[Jurassic.Hermit]

Re: Windows' Search

Copernic is excellent too, albeit paid. Been using it for well over a decade, finds everything whilst MS search especially Outlook search can't find anything relevant.

[Sudosu]

Re: Windows' Search

Oh, how many times I had to kill that damned indexing service to make things work over the years...grrrr.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Windows' Search

If the file is in front of you why on earth do you need to search for it?

Ok, I'm a grumpy old git but I can count the times I have used a graphical 'search' tool for files on my local system on on hand. Being old school, 'find' is there and is used for local searches.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Windows' Search

Original AC here.

Just to remind myself how useless it is. :-)

[Rich 2]

Re: Windows' Search

Is search STILL broken? (I don’t use windows these days so don’t really know, but I definitely remember file search borkage being a thing decades ago)

It beggars belief that something as basic as a file search can still be broken after all these years

Go Microslop, Go!!

[David 132]

Re: Windows' Search

Yes, broken, and since Windows 10-or-whatever, further enspittified by the integration of web search.

I was fixing a friend's PC via AnyDesk last week; it's vanilla unmodified Windows 11, and by golly, I'd forgotten how much of a PITA that is.

I wanted to see if he had a particular program installed, so searched for the first few letters of its name in the start menu Search box. Bingo, instant result, the correct icon and everything, so I clicked it... and was taken to a Bing search for the program name. Aaaargh, grawlix grawlix grawlix.

The actual program was installed, it's just that Search hadn't found it because it was buried in the extremely obscure and unusual location of C:\Program Files, I mean honestly, who expects programs to be installed there...

[Pen-y-gors]

Re: Windows' Search

And it's so frickin' SLOW. Searching for a filename in a directory with a few thousand files in it on an SSD shouldn't take minutes.

[hedgie]

Re: Windows' Search

Exactly. You don't really *need* any AI nonsense for something so basic. Something similar to Spotlight on Mac is sufficient for searching documents, including .pdf and .doc files for whatever search string you put in, and I have found useful enough to have on a keyboard shortcut. Any decent desktop search would be able to go through a user's documents and retrieve what one needs, even if it has to download data from a remote "drive" in order to do so.

I could see the use of an "AI" to provide summaries of documents rather than searching particular strings, or to find specific images based upon content (ie, that silly one of a dog wearing sunglasses that you don't remember the file name of), but it comes at too high a cost. I don't *want* any online storage provider to even be able to read my documents, let alone have some data-harvesting bot looking through everything for $DEITY knows what purpose. And since M$ has shown itself to be a purveyor of spyware, if I have 0 trust in any provider, my trust for M$ to not mishandle it is a negative or imaginary number.

[Taliesinawen]

Re: Windows' Search

Try “Everything” search at voidtools.com

[Blogitus Maximus]

Re: Windows' Search

I abandoned built-in windows search years ago and exchanged it for Void Tool "Everything" which is considerable faster and feature rich or just ignore the features and just enjoy faster searches.

[Scotthva5]

Who watches the watchers?

It sounds great - on paper - but instead of actually reading the documents I'm supposed to trust Copilot's summation? What if it misses vital information or draws the wrong conclusion based on yet another hallucination and presented as fact? This is a slippery slope that only Microsoft could dream up and woe be to the team that makes important business decisions based on it.

[Yorick Hunt]

Re: Who watches the watchers?

"woe be to the team that makes important business decisions based on it"

Fuggem, I say.

I know the type who lap this type of shit up; they deserve everything they get.

[EdSaxby]

Re: Who watches the watchers?

Unfortunately, the "type who lap this shit up" are the technology leadership in my organisation (i.e. managers), they then foist this overpriced stupidity on us and expect us to smile as we use it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Who watches the watchers?

I work in a specialized tech field (hence AC) and as a team, we're incessantly being urged to use LLM-based AI to augment our workflows. Colleagues tried using it to write product documentation this week; as one of them put it to me, "it did a reasonable job of doing all the stuff I didn't need it to do, and completely failed to do the tedious stuff like inserting standard boilerplate text that I DID want it to do!"

Add to that the inevitable realization that ok, it might have spared the human writer 30 minutes of effort, BUT to get half-way coherent product, that writer had to spend 20 minutes polishing and editing and prepping the Confluence doc that the user documentation's based on, and then another hour cleaning up the LLM's output... it's like the comparisons of transit methods where people say "oh, why would I take 2 hours on the train to get from A to B, when a flight there takes only 20 minutes" but ignore the plane's obligatory 2+ hours of check-in, hour of airport-to-town-centre transfer taxi time, and so on.

Still, at least AI is making memory, power, water, and gpus reassuringly expensive for the rest of us. Those are all veblen goods, right? <sarc>

[DJV]

Re: Who watches the watchers?

I'm glad my boss is of the same opinion about AI as I am (i.e. AI is totally shite). Then again, I am self-employed, so...

[NoneSuch]

Re: Who watches the watchers?

When you work for yourself, your boss is an a-hole.

Long hours, no breaks and there's always something else to do.

[VoiceOfTruth]

Re: Who watches the watchers?

>> https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/05/uk_courts_cloud/

Wait until the miscarriages of justice start. The hand wringing. Lessons must be learned. More AI will fix this. Blah blah blah.

[ecofeco]

Re: Who watches the watchers?

"Brazil", the movie.

[that one in the corner]

Re: Who watches the watchers?

So much so, including the battle against the man at the top who just wants to present it as a thing of loveliness, nothing bad to see over here.

[Sudosu]

Re: Who watches the watchers?

...and now that song is in my head for the day, I guess it could be worse haha.

[PB90210]

Re: Who watches the watchers?

"it is up to the user to make sure that anyone with whom an agent is shared has access to the same source files. Otherwise, there is an even greater chance that Copilot might be confidently wrong"

But will it admit that it doesn't have access to all the info... or does it just give an answer based on the little it can see?

[Rich 2]

Re: Who watches the watchers?

This is something I absolutely don’t get. Why do all the LLM companies think everyone needs emails and documents summarising?

Just a shot-in-the-dark but could it be because it’s the ONE thing that LLMs can actually do (I use the term loosely) to some degree? (the one thing that isn’t helping fraudsters or embezzling or breaking into servers or other nefarious thing that LLMs also seem to help with)

[Alumoi]

Re: Who watches the watchers?

Have you seen the endless and idiotic emails and documents circulating around companies?

[steviesteveo]

Re: Who watches the watchers?

What gets me is being told I need to review documents AI has summarised because I'm responsible if the output doesn't include something important

It so perfectly eliminates the benefit of getting something summarised for you that it feels like entrapment

[Sudosu]

Re: Who watches the watchers?

Artificial Intern may be a more apt term for the output.

[Richard 12]

Re: Who watches the watchers?

Interns improve daily.

LLMs ... don't.

Paid interns are also cheaper when you consider the total cost of ownership.

[Anonymous Coward]

May be Sat Nad could be replaced by an AI.

[Steve Davies 3]

re: May be Sat Nad could be replaced by an AI.

I always thought that he was the AI replacement for Balmer.... Ok, I'll get me coat... The one with a Linux handbook in the pocket.

[Will Godfrey]

Gods

I'm reminded of a SciFi story I read very many years ago. A massive computer had just been built and there was a ceremonial switch on. At this point various strange noises came from the speakers and lights flickered before it settled down with a gurgling noise. One of the politicians present asked the first question. "Is there a god?"

Almost instantly the reply came back. "There is now!"

[LateAgain]

Re: Gods

Sound's like:

Answer by Fredric Brown, 1954

Personally I prefer the version by Asimov - The Last Question

[Will Godfrey]

Re: Gods

No, Neither of those.

Mind you "The Last Question" is one of my all-time favourites.

[Pickle Rick]

Microsoft said: "The agent can provide... grounded responses"

Grounded? Like Musk in a K hole. Did you really think you could slip that in there? M$ are hallucinating hard core.

[original_rwg]

"If someone opens the agent they won't get useful answers."

FTFY

[Anonymous Coward]

More AI training data. Which is why I don't use OneDrive and I don't allow Co-pirate.

[billdehaan]

Microsoft is speed running towards Orwell

For the nontechnical people (people who don't read El Reg), the implications of this are pretty staggering.

1. Windows now mandates an internet connection and an online Outlook account to register Windows.

2. Windows backs up user files to the OneDrive by default, without requiring (or asking for) user permission to do so.

3. Microsoft has given the FBI user Bitlocker keys, defeating user encryption.

4. They are now using AI to process OneDrive files.

While there are workarounds and ways to defeat steps 1 and 2, they require technical knowledge. To defeat step 2 requires an awareness that it is even happening. For the average user who just uses their PC to browse the web, read email, shop online, do their banking, etc., they are likely unaware any of this is happening.

Meanwhile, all of their data - finances, business records, divorce proceedings, porn, emails written when drunk, etc., - are online, searchable by Microsoft, who has just set up AI to process and summarize their contents.

If an FBI investigator can get user files from Microsoft, and Microsoft is developing AI search tools, how long will it be before the FBI asks Microsoft to run those search tools on user files to identify illegal or potentially illegal activity?

Back in the 1990s, people were worried that the feds were scraping Usenet, looking for incriminating evidence. Many used to put things like "Fulan Gong, Semtex, C4, Capitol Building" in their signatures in order to pollute those scraping tools. With the way things are going, you don't need to post publicly, just putting it on your personal computer will be the same.

People have been arrested in airports for making jokes about hijacking planes. Most people's reaction is that's going overboard, but it was stupid to make jokes like that at the airport. It's fine to do it elsewhere, but airports are an off limits area for things like that. With MS scraping user files, your home computer is now an off limits area.

[Sudosu]

Re: Microsoft is speed running towards Orwell

So can you call the FBI when we can't find your keys?

[Tron]

Re: Microsoft is speed running towards Orwell

We've moved past the part of the curve where tech empowered us the more we used. Now, the more we use, the less empowered we become.

From now on, use less tech and use it offline.

[xyz]

Re: Microsoft is speed running towards Orwell

Don't worry it's Microsoft...they fuck up everything they do.

[Alumoi]

Re: Microsoft is speed running towards Orwell

Your home computer? Like your smart(phone,tv,car,gadget), you're just allowed to pay for and use it. It' not yours anymore.

On the other hand there's Linux.

[Blackjack]

Anyone here not forced to do so uses Onedrive?

Genuinely curious.

[Maurice Mynah]

It's a s*dding nuisance if you have an off-site laptop on a metered connection, in parallel with a desktop. And even if it's supposedly turned off it seems to claim it's downloading files, so you can't shutdown.

(Icon is for OneDrive, not you.)

[Pen-y-gors]

Going off at a tangent here... where do you get 'metered connections' in this Year of Our Lord 2026?

[this]

using a phone to connect mobile?

[Tron]

Capped connections too.

Pocket WiFi may be the cheapest way to get a non-contract internet connection in the UK, but the data is capped. Avoid streaming and £20 can last you 6 weeks.

Isn't it possible to break OneDrive, by blocking a specific connection, or removing a software component?

Is there a delete all OneDrive files when shutting down option/application? It won't save bandwidth, but it would reduce the chances of having your files out there.

[Anonymous Coward]

MIGA

So, realtime intercept (and analysis!) of your Teams communications via AI, and another AI rifling through all your data.

MIGA?

Make Intercept Great Again? It certainly does away with all the cryptography barriers by doing it from the inside..

[Paratiritis]

Re: MIGA

And this is combined with Recall for a complete solution, to provide evidence of not only what you produced but also how you produced it.

[Like a badger]

20 files?

So the might of Copilot is limited to 20 files that I have to manually select. NotWow.

If I wanted to take the risk of Copilot (and occasionally I do), then what I'd actually like is for it to pillage all of the thousands of local and shared files I have access to, and my email folders, subject to whatever the prompt parameters are.

[Sudosu]

Re: 20 files?

Just Store a couple DVD ISO or Blu-Ray files in OneDrive before you put anything else in there and it will never finish the sync.

[Kersmudgens]

Crashes

Is this why I've had dozens of laptops a day with windows explorer crashes this week? Love a new 'feature'

[sedregj]

OneDrive ate my dog's photos

You'll be able to blame CoPilot for deleting your homework and who will question you?

[Pen-y-gors]

Classic version

Thank the gods I upgraded my Office 365 sub to the cheaper, Copilot-free version

[Anonymous Coward]

So what about medical documents or legal briefs' or patents.

So what about medical documents, or legal briefs, or patents. Are they just sucking that stuff into their cloud. They should expect some hefty lawsuits that a click thru wont save them from.

I would not want to be a MS employee ... not all folks are rational..

[b1k3rdude]

What ever I remove all my files (non of which were confidential) off OD 6ms ago.

[Pickle Rick]

OMG!! My files!

>> Microsoft sets Copilot agents loose on your OneDrive files

Oh crapolla! ... ... ... Wait a sec....

Microsoft... nope! Copilot... nope! OneDrive... nope! Phew!

Trolololol :D