Copilot or else! (for OEMs...eventually)

OFaceSIG said:
I just now noticed on my wireless Logitech cheapy keyboard that I use when I WFH it doesn't even have the right click button. Logitech replaced it with a function key for alternate F key functions.
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That's pretty common. Lots of keyboards that attempt to add additional functionality will use that key for it, as it is so rarely used.

Both my Ducky and WASD Keyboards place their Fn keys there by default (but it is configurable if you really want the menu key)

PXL_20240105_154445659.jpg


I guess someone at Microsoft though the Menu key would be useful when they were working on Windows 95, but users disagreed, and very few actually ever use it.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
That's pretty common. Lots of keyboards that attempt to add additional functionality will use that key for it, as it is so rarely used.

Both my Ducky and WASD Keyboards place their Fn keys there by default (but it is configurable if you really want the menu key)

View attachment 624936

I guess someone at Microsoft though the Menu key would be useful when they were working on Windows 95, but users disagreed, and very few actually ever use it.
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See but your keyboard has another "windows" key there. Not the "right click" button which was my point. It seems many keyboards are now excluding that "right click" button anyway.
 
OFaceSIG said:
See but your keyboard has another "windows" key there. Not the "right click" button which was my point. It seems many keyboards are now excluding that "right click" button anyway.
Click to expand...

The "right click" or "menu" button is where they instead stuck the Fn keycap. If I flip a dipswitch on the bottom, it returns to being a menu button. They keyboard even came with a menu button keycap if I want to use it (but god knows where that went at this point)
 
No key worries here. My model M lacks the too stupid to ctrl+esc windows key, the right click key and any other dumbass keys M$ can think to add. MOO-WA-HA-HA! :)
 
Time to just get rid of keyboards and mice and just start only using touch screen monitors! Then you can just use some kind of keyboard designer and make it however you want!!! And integrated AI assistant!!
 
Darunion said:
Time to just get rid of keyboards and mice and just start only using touch screen monitors! Then you can just use some kind of keyboard designer and make it however you want!!! And integrated AI assistant!!
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Please for the love of God, don't give them any ideas...

Touch screens are one of the worst things to ever happen to electronics and computers.
 
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Zarathustra[H] said:
Please for the love of God, do it give them any ideas...

Touch screens are one of the worst things to ever happen to electronics and computers.
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Haha, in my head "Zarathustra is gonna toss me in the dumpster after reading this".
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I have made it to 2024 without even once using anything AI. (well, I did experiment with "stable diffusion" once for about 10 minutes. I didn't like it)
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If you work at a desk job, you are only hurting yourself. AI can be a massive time saver, for certain tasks.
However, if you value your privacy, take steps to avoid providing it your phone number or account information or use a tool that does not require it.
 
sleepeeg3 said:
If you work at a desk job, you are only hurting yourself. AI can be a massive time saver, for certain tasks.
However, if you value your privacy, take steps to avoid providing it your phone number or account information or use a tool that does not require it.
Click to expand...

You will be able to use good AIs like these privately in the future. Pretty much all of runs on hardware you could run at home. It's just the training of the AI models that require millions of dollars in compute and power. You actually can run a lot of the stuff at home, it's just some of the best like ChatGPT that are closed source and aren't going to let you because that's how they make money.

There are companies that are working on creating dedicated high end AI machines to run in your own home and organizations creating models everyone can use.

For privacy's sake I hope this becomes the norm. It would also allow you to customize things and avoid all the censorship, etc.
 
cpufrost said:
As hard as they have made it to remove defender, it is possible so this also can be stripped too!
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Why on Earth would you ever want to remove it? It's one of the lightest weight, best-detecting AV and comes free with windows. If you use a third party AV, it disables itself anyways.
 
GoldenTiger said:
Why on Earth would you ever want to remove it? It's one of the lightest weight, best-detecting AV and comes free with windows. If you use a third party AV, it disables itself anyways.
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Don't need it, don't want it. So tired of these companies dictating how we use our stuff. ESPECIALLY mobile (locked bootloaders).

Also, it is NEVER truly disabled even with third party AV installed! The process is still running all the time.
 
cpufrost said:
Don't need it, don't want it. So tired of these companies dictating how we use our stuff. ESPECIALLY mobile (locked bootloaders).

Also, it is NEVER truly disabled even with third party AV installed! The process is still running all the time.
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Couldn't agree more.

I would have no problem if they made it the new default for fresh installs, but we should not have things forced on us without a choice.
 
A Co-Pilot (preview) popped up on the taskbar of my work Win11 laptop today. :rage:


1711130793385.png


I have not even clicked on it, and I never will. No AI ever. Not even once.

Luckily you can get rid of it under Settings -> Personalization -> Taskbar.

At least for now. There is seemingly no way to uninstall it though, which is a huge bummer. I don't want that bloat on any of my machines.
 
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Zarathustra[H] said:
A Co-Pilot (preview) popped up on the taskbar of my work Win11 laptop today. :rage:


View attachment 643147

I have not even clicked on it, and I never will. No AI ever. Not even once.

Luckily you can get rid of it under Settings -> Personalization -> Taskbar.

At least for now. There is seemingly no way to uninstall it though, which is a huge bummer. I don't want that bloat on any of my machines.
Click to expand...
like you didnt know it was coming. at least you realized you can turn it off....
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
A Co-Pilot (preview) popped up on the taskbar of my work Win11 laptop today. :rage:


View attachment 643147

I have not even clicked on it, and I never will. No AI ever. Not even once.

Luckily you can get rid of it under Settings -> Personalization -> Taskbar.

At least for now. There is seemingly no way to uninstall it though, which is a huge bummer. I don't want that bloat on any of my machines.
Click to expand...
The horror! You knew it was coming, all it takes to turn it off is a couple of clicks. I spent a whopping 5 seconds figuring out how when I saw it on my system today.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Luckily you can get rid of it under Settings -> Personalization -> Taskbar.

At least for now. There is seemingly no way to uninstall it though, which is a huge bummer. I don't want that bloat on any of my machines.
Click to expand...

That setting only toggles the visibility of the icon. Copilot is always running whether you want it or not. In order to actually disable it, you have to go to Group Policy Editor -> User Config -> Admin templates -> Windows components -> Window Copilot and then make sure Turn Off Windows Copilot is enabled.

Because Group Policy Editor requires Pro or higher, the ability to disable AI user monitoring is effectively paywalled.
 
Thunderdolt said:
That setting only toggles the visibility of the icon. Copilot is always running whether you want it or not. In order to actually disable it, you have to go to Group Policy Editor -> User Config -> Admin templates -> Windows components -> Window Copilot and then make sure Turn Off Windows Copilot is enabled.

Because Group Policy Editor requires Pro or higher, the ability to disable AI user monitoring is effectively paywalled.
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Group policy is available for Windows Home Edition, it just isn't installed by default, you can install it via available scripts or Powershell if desired.
But you can also disable it via the registry.
Additionally, according to Microsoft the act of removing it from the taskbar disables it, so it is not running in the background as it is disabled.
 
With the investments Microsoft and others are doing, of course it's going to force it into Windows to pay for that investment. It's like the old Metallica song - "Harvester of data!" or something like that.

I'm fine with having things like that, even on by default, but there really needs to be a way to disable it easily. Not Powershell, not gpedit. A switch in settings that completely disables things. The forced usage is what bugs me. You can't opt-out without installing a different OS. It's sad that some people are moving to Linux or Mac based on singular features in Windows, but without the ability to disable them it kind of leaves little choice. Windows is becoming a very forced closed system that "you get what you get" with very few options, and those few options are visual features (which are still less than ever before).
 
Ur_Mom said:
With the investments Microsoft and others are doing, of course it's going to force it into Windows to pay for that investment. It's like the old Metallica song - "Harvester of data!" or something like that.

I'm fine with having things like that, even on by default, but there really needs to be a way to disable it easily. Not Powershell, not gpedit. A switch in settings that completely disables things. The forced usage is what bugs me. You can't opt-out without installing a different OS. It's sad that some people are moving to Linux or Mac based on singular features in Windows, but without the ability to disable them it kind of leaves little choice. Windows is becoming a very forced closed system that "you get what you get" with very few options, and those few options are visual features (which are still less than ever before).
Click to expand...
You can access it via the Task Bar settings under personalization.
 
Lakados said:
Group policy is available for Windows Home Edition, it just isn't installed by default, you can install it via available scripts or Powershell if desired.
But you can also disable it via the registry.
Additionally, according to Microsoft the act of removing it from the taskbar disables it, so it is not running in the background as it is disabled.
Click to expand...
Ah, good to know about GPE.

I have seen mixed reports about the registry key. Apparently Copilot will load right up as soon as the user, the OS, or an app loads up Edge even with the registry key set.

This is the same thing that happens when you hide the task bar icon. A bunch of different actions will launch the Copilot even if the icon is hidden.

Ur_Mom said:
I'm fine with having things like that, even on by default, but there really needs to be a way to disable it easily. Not Powershell, not gpedit. A switch in settings that completely disables things. The forced usage is what bugs me. You can't opt-out without installing a different OS. It's sad that some people are moving to Linux or Mac based on singular features in Windows, but without the ability to disable them it kind of leaves little choice. Windows is becoming a very forced closed system that "you get what you get" with very few options, and those few options are visual features (which are still less than ever before).
Click to expand...

For me, it suddenly appeared on a few dedicated rendering machines that don't even have users at them. It's ridiculous that I have to jump through hoops to disable the world's dumbest AI chatbot on those machines.
 
Thunderdolt said:
I have seen mixed reports about the registry key. Apparently Copilot will load right up as soon as the user, the OS, or an app loads up Edge even with the registry key set.
Click to expand...
CoPilot in Edge is different than the one attached to the taskbar, in Edge CoPilot is an addon App, that can be removed or disabled just as any other browser addon.
1711137877498.png

Here again, choosing to not show Copilot disables it in Edge but yes this as with the taskbar would need to be done on a user-by-user basis.
Microsoft has placed them under the personalized settings and those are user-dependent and subject to change.
Sadly GPOs and Registry Keys are the only means of modifying the default state of the user personalization across the entire machine and enforcing GPOs on Home Edition is a PITA.
 
Thunderdolt said:
That setting only toggles the visibility of the icon. Copilot is always running whether you want it or not. In order to actually disable it, you have to go to Group Policy Editor -> User Config -> Admin templates -> Windows components -> Window Copilot and then make sure Turn Off Windows Copilot is enabled.

Because Group Policy Editor requires Pro or higher, the ability to disable AI user monitoring is effectively paywalled.
Click to expand...

Exactly. That is the problem.

Hiding something does not equal disabling it.

IN my ideal state it would be not just disabled, but the binaries would be removed from my system.

At least hiding it doesn't make be annoyed by seeing it on my taskbar every couple of seconds.
 
Lakados said:
CoPilot in Edge is different than the one attached to the taskbar, in Edge CoPilot is an addon App, that can be removed or disabled just as any other browser addon.
View attachment 643178
Here again, choosing to not show Copilot disables it in Edge but yes this as with the taskbar would need to be done on a user-by-user basis.
Microsoft has placed them under the personalized settings and those are user-dependent and subject to change.
Sadly GPOs and Registry Keys are the only means of modifying the default state of the user personalization across the entire machine and enforcing GPOs on Home Edition is a PITA.
Click to expand...

I'd imagine that one can just disable Edge as a startup app and never launch it as a solution as well :p
 
i have it turned off in gp, its not running in the background at all and it even removes access to the sidebar settings:
1711140550717.png


BUT to fully get rid of it, so you dont get the ai rewrite popup, you have to turn this off:
1711140411423.png
 
Thunderdolt said:
Ah, good to know about GPE.

I have seen mixed reports about the registry key. Apparently Copilot will load right up as soon as the user, the OS, or an app loads up Edge even with the registry key set.

This is the same thing that happens when you hide the task bar icon. A bunch of different actions will launch the Copilot even if the icon is hidden.



For me, it suddenly appeared on a few dedicated rendering machines that don't even have users at them. It's ridiculous that I have to jump through hoops to disable the world's dumbest AI chatbot on those machines.
Click to expand...
Ask it to write a novel about the Oregon Trail. Please paste the output here.
 
I work for a small startup, where I have been since before AI was something we were talking about outside of science fiction.

It just struck me, we should probably have a policy for acceptable AI use in the workplace. Now that co-pilot is rolling out to all PC's, if it is blindly used without thorough review it could land us in regulatory hot water.

I'm not sure if AI acceptable use policies are a common thing at other companies out there these days, as I have been here a while, but I think I am going to suggest this at the next management meeting.

I know, I know. No one should be blindly trusting these language models, and I don't think most technical professionals will, but you know there is some air head in marketing who thinks "well, Microsoft put it on my computer, so it must be fine" and then get us shot down by FDA because an unreleased future potential indication for use was accidentally communicated to a medical practitioner, or something like that.

Damn, that is actually really scary. Could kill the company.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I work for a small startup, where I have been since before AI was something we were talking about outside of science fiction.

It just struck me, we should probably have a policy for acceptable AI use in the workplace. Now that co-pilot is rolling out to all PC's, if it is blindly used without thorough review it could land us in regulatory hot water.

I'm not sure if AI acceptable use policies are a common thing at other companies out there these days, as I have been here a while, but I think I am going to suggest this at the next management meeting.

I know, I know. No one should be blindly trusting these language models, and I don't think most technical professionals will, but you know there is some air head in marketing who thinks "well, Microsoft put it on my computer, so it must be fine" and then get us shot down by FDA because an unreleased future potential indication for use was accidentally communicated to a medical practitioner, or something like that.

Damn, that is actually really scary. Could kill the company.
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yup, yup, yup, yup, and yup. i keep telling people at work to slow down with all the ai shit but everyone at h/o is jumping in the deep end based on hype from people selling it and not thinking about the potential nightmares it may cause. but thats edu for ya. even the "highly educated" teachers arent realizing that they themselves could probably pretty easily be replaced by ai....
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I work for a small startup, where I have been since before AI was something we were talking about outside of science fiction.

It just struck me, we should probably have a policy for acceptable AI use in the workplace. Now that co-pilot is rolling out to all PC's, if it is blindly used without thorough review it could land us in regulatory hot water.

I'm not sure if AI acceptable use policies are a common thing at other companies out there these days, as I have been here a while, but I think I am going to suggest this at the next management meeting.

I know, I know. No one should be blindly trusting these language models, and I don't think most technical professionals will, but you know there is some air head in marketing who thinks "well, Microsoft put it on my computer, so it must be fine" and then get us shot down by FDA because an unreleased future potential indication for use was accidentally communicated to a medical practitioner, or something like that.

Damn, that is actually really scary. Could kill the company.
Click to expand...
Enterprise GPO defaults to off if you have your servers updated accordingly.
Microsoft also has a long AF document with a very large series of checkboxes on the things you need to ensure before you enable it on your domain.
They make it clear that CoPilot will not share information out for training, but it is locally aware so any documents accidentally overshared internally in SharePoint or whatnot can inadvertently become part of a local user query regardless of whether or not that user knows they have access to that file.
So Microsoft gives long and clear instructions on how to lock down your environment and triple-check your shares and permissions before enabling CoPilot in a work environment so you can avoid just that very scenario.

You can start here:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-copilot/microsoft-365-copilot-privacy

But you should 100% have an acceptable use policy and PIA template for the AI tools out there.
Microsoft at least makes some assurances on how your data is treated in comparison to others which use every query and data input as training material which can and will lead to leaks.
 
Becoming angry about co-pilot seems odd to me. It's a natural progression. Are you also angry that your OS has built-in local search? No one is forcing you to use it, and I have seen zero evidence of copilot using any relevant amount of CPU resources in the background even if you're not using it. Keep in mind that I have Windows 11 running on some very old, slow computers, where excess CPU usage would be very easily noticeable.
 
GotNoRice said:
Becoming angry about co-pilot seems odd to me. It's a natural progression. Are you also angry that your OS has built-in local search? No one is forcing you to use it, and I have seen zero evidence of copilot using any relevant amount of CPU resources in the background even if you're not using it. Keep in mind that I have Windows 11 running on some very old, slow computers, where excess CPU usage would be very easily noticeable.
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Speaking of search, yes back when (XP) had SQL server running for search and indexing killed performance (no ssds then) it was utterly ridiculous.
It's getting to the point where they want everything to have an orb and you just ask for what you want. Do not want this at all! If you ever have seen the movie "Passengers" when the ship malfunctioned due to a strike from cosmic debris and this one guy was awaken from his pod and was trying to call for help. Yeah, personally I'm glad I'm a senior because I don't want to see this. I'll keep driving my stickshift pushrod V-8, thank you very much! :-P
 
cpufrost said:
It's getting to the point where they want everything to have an orb and you just ask for what you want. Do not want this at all! If you ever have seen the movie "Passengers" when the ship malfunctioned due to a strike from cosmic debris and this one guy was awaken from his pod and was trying to call for help. Yeah, personally I'm glad I'm a senior because I don't want to see this. I'll keep driving my stickshift pushrod V-8, thank you very much! :-P
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I think you just identified the real issue here. People see the word "AI", and immediately unleash all of their random AI-related fears onto the topic the same way someone might unleash yesterday's Taco Bell upon their toilet. I mean, you immediately referenced an 8-year-old bad movie in order to provide some sort of "example" rather than actually trying to understand what Co-pilot even is. You're old and change is scary, we get it.
 
GotNoRice said:
I think you just identified the real issue here. People see the word "AI", and immediately unleash all of their random AI-related fears onto the topic the same way someone might unleash yesterday's Taco Bell upon their toilet. I mean, you immediately referenced an 8-year-old bad movie in order to provide some sort of "example" rather than actually trying to understand what Co-pilot even is. You're old and change is scary, we get it.
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No, I don't want to be forced to use something I don't need or don't want. Is that simple enough?

AI is either Artificial Intelligence OR Advanced Intelligence. The latter is far more commonplace.
 
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