Microsoft 365 pauses Copilot creep after admins cry foul

Microsoft has paused plans to force the Microsoft 365 Copilot app on users, halting automatic installations for an unspecified period. "This app provides a centralized entry point for accessing Copilot experiences and AI-powered capabilities across Microsoft 365," Microsoft said. "This change simplifies access to Copilot and …

[Korev]

The autmatic deployment was designed to encourage adoption of Microsoft 365 Copilot

Did Copilot miss this?

[Snake]

RE: automatic deployment

Trying to justify the AI spend by pushing it on users, regardless of what said user might actually want.

But you can't just blame MS for this, *every* "AI" hype-machine company involved with the fraud is doing the same thing. You have a hammer, everything turns into a nail.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: RE: automatic deployment

> Trying to justify the AI spend by pushing it on users, regardless of what said user might actually want.

But that's worked well in IT, right? From new Windows interfaces to new IPv6 "features."

[ITMA]

It is like so many other "features" which have been forced out onto users enabled....

Such as "Focussed Inbox" (effing hate that shite).

And why, oh why, do Microsoft keep turning back on all the bloody shite on the lock screen????

If don't give a flying fuck about any of that shit and do NOT want it on my lock screen. STOP TURNING IT BACK YOU MORONS!

[captain veg]

MORONS

For reasons I can't be bothered to work out it seems that Edge works better here* to watch Channel 4 on line than other browsers.

I rarely watch Channel 4, but when I do I fire up Edge. And when I do I am astonished, to much the same extent as I am watching FTA TV when in UK, at just how abusively rubbish the experience is. I mean particularly how crap Edge is, foisting what it want's into my browsing experience apropos of nothing. And, weirdly, imposingly an unnecessary border around the maximised window. No idea what that's about.

-A.

* Outside UK, natch, NordVpn plug-in.

[MJI]

10 worked fine, 11 creaking under the load

My work PC downgraded last year from 10 to 11, and as time goes on gets slower and slower.

Adds features I do not use, hogging RAM and CPU cycles.

Some I can turn off, or taskkill.

Yet MS word now no longer saves without ai.exe running.

Adds more and more junk, so I struggle to run what I need.

Now feels slower than a Q8300 with 4GB RAM running Windows 7, in fact compile speeds are no better.

More cores, more speed, slower.

The same compiler however is rapid under WINE on my Linux box.

[Anonymous Coward]

No unwanted Copilot in Nextcloud + Collabora

We're data sovereign for our collaborative office needs. We aren't locked in, we don't get new "features" pushed on us by vendors, and AI isn't trained on our work product. We control our own data on our own systems.

It's not terribly difficult now, and it gets easier every day. Hoping the EU gets serious about awarding grants to open source office developers. Mainstream "office" tasks are effectively a solved problem and have been for many years. The top priority in development time is building features which help open source compete with proprietary collaboration platforms.

Can't wait for the day when installing a self-hosted collaborative office suite takes no more time than a wizard-guided installation of Microsoft Office.

[Guy de Loimbard]

I rolled back to Office 2024 in my SOHO environment

Minus 365 and all the "features".

Of note, it's taking me a while to turn off all the 365 features on my Win11 PC, biggest wrestle was to regain control of "My Documents" from One Drive.

On analysis, couldn't believe how much crap I had in one drive.

Reverted to my multi terabyte, on Motherboard SSDs, will now consider some sort of NAS on my home infrastructure as, if I'm honest, I'd become so lazy and was letting a 365 subscription slowly lock me into their infrastructure and billing, but the key trigger was yet another price hike and a realisation that we don't need all these features and an ongoing ever increasing bill and the inevitable AI creep too.

At some point I will get fully onboard with FOSS office software, but baby steps.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I rolled back to Office 2024 in my SOHO environment

Are you doing anything outside of a browser or a typical office suite?

[Guy de Loimbard]

Re: I rolled back to Office 2024 in my SOHO environment

I'm using typical office suite, just don't need the subscription, or the one drive, or the drama of AI! :)

[billdehaan]

Microsoft is so proud of Copilot they promote it by saying it can be turned off

Copilot and Recall are not the first features that Microsoft (or other companies) have foisted on users who vocally and repeatedly rejected them.

The first stage of denial is "it's wonderful, you just don't appreciate it because you don't understand it yet, that's all".

The second stage is "you're not using it properly, that's why you're not seeing the benefits of it".

The third stage is "well, it's not for everyone, some users, like yourself may not need it, but the majority of users do benefit from it"

The fourth stage is "like it or not, it's here to stay, but if you really don't like it, you can disable it by doing this"

Microsoft has been dictating this to users for years now. They could absorb the loss of a sliver of users who migrated back to Windows 10, to Linux, or MacOS. But now big PC vendors like Lenovo, Asus, and Dell are starting to offer Windows-less machines for sale, and even some machines with Ubuntu installed. That's an actual threat that makes Microsoft sit up and take notice.

What can they do to stop the defections? First, identify the cause. It's not difficult, because people have been screaming about it for years. But their AI strategy is entrenched, and won't be changing. So, as a panacea, they offer people the option to disable the hated functionality.

Of course, given Microsoft's track record, a lot of people don't trust them, nor should they. Microsoft has a history of re-enabling features that users disable against their will.

[JT_3K]

Re: Microsoft is so proud of Copilot they promote it by saying it can be turned off

As I recount often, I was at the UK launch of Windows 8 (not 8.1) with that disastrous no-Start-button, hot-area interface. They had a really strong pushback from the audience who made it clear that the application of a tablet OS without visible buttons to user desktops was ridiculous and would be a nightmare. Further, the crowd pushed that application of this UI to the server OS would be insane as selecting a hot-area on an RDS would drive us all mad.

Eventually, the on-stage representative got angry and went off on a rant reminiscent of when BMW's M-chief ranted at press that the E30/E46 were not the "last great M3" and people needed to move forward. Their response was "it's not going to change, and users are going to use it at home and come in to push you in to it anyway, so you'll have to get used to it, because W7 is going to be retired eventually". The mood for the rest of the day was poor, a far cry from the triumphant W7 launch event where all of us clamoured for our free W7 Ultimate handout at the end.

Obviously it went well for them, and moreover, they learned their lessons from it. /s

[Tron]

Hey MS.

If you offered me a secured W7 machine for twice the price of a similarly specced W11 machine, I'd take the W7 machine.

So how much did you spend over the years developing beyond W7?

[DoctorPaul]

OneDrive panic

Not directly related, but a few days ago I got an email from Microshit warning me that my storage space was 80% full and did I want to upgrade?

Cue complete panic. I run just two Win10 machines (finally had to give up Win7), have never ever knowingly used OneDrive and always use a local account, just logging in once every 60 days and immediately switching back to local to maintain ESU. The idea that the bastards had slyly siphoned off my private documents at some point was not a pleasant one.

Logged into my account at microsoft.com and, huge relief, OneDrive usage was 0%. So WTF was that about?

[David Hicklin]

Re: OneDrive panic

Was the email *really* from Micro$lop?

If you have a local account how would they know your email address ??