I hate this wording choise, that “Turn off windows copilot” - Enabled, actually means that copilot is disabled. Confusing and unintuitive. It should say just “windows Copilot: Enabled/Disabled”. Why is MS like this?
This happens at my employer from time to time where the default action is for something to be off. So the option is “Turn off X” with a checked checkbox next to it.
This is negative logic and is stupid. Turning on an option should enable something. Turning it off should disable it. If the default is that it is off, then give it a positive description “Turn on X” and then default the value to off.
I get really angry about this if you couldn’t tell.
It’s a boolean operation implementing the rule in question. 0 is no action, 1 is do whatever the action is.
In this case the action is a negative – disable the thing – so it is indeed semantically confusing to anyone who doesn’t have binary brain.
The option for “Disable Windows Consumer Features” (i.e. stop installing Candy Crush and other bullshit in your start menu without your consent) works the same way.
Wait until millions realize they have Windows home and don’t have group policy editor
That’s a good point:
Disable copilot via regedit
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsCopilot] “TurnOffWindowsCopilot”=dword:00000001
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsCopilot] “TurnOffWindowsCopilot”=dword:00000001
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge] “HubsSidebarEnabled”=dword:00000000
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer] “DisableSearchBoxSuggestions”=dword:00000001
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer] “DisableSearchBoxSuggestions”=dword:00000001
Reenable copilot via regedit
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsCopilot] “TurnOffWindowsCopilot”=-
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsCopilot] “TurnOffWindowsCopilot”=-
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge] “HubsSidebarEnabled”=-
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer] “DisableSearchBoxSuggestions”=-
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer] “DisableSearchBoxSuggestions”=-
Gotta love Microsoft. “We need this to store either a 0 or a 1. How many bits should we take up, boss?”
32.
I bet the person who decided to store gender as a 32 bit value instead of a single bit is feeling utterly proud of his foresight right now.
Using more than one bit for true/false isn’t just a microsoft thing, and not really as ridiculous as it sounds. Memory isn’t addessable by bits, but by bytes. You can either:
- Do it like the example here.
- Use bitfields: Pack multiple values into the same address, but “waste” more memory and cpu time for keeping track and checking which bit your bool is in. This is mostly useful when the data itself has to be really small.
Why is it 32bit / 4 bytes instead of one? I assume a byte alignment reason because of some optimization.
It looks to be the smallest supported integer type: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/windows_protocols/ms-rprn/25cce700-7fcf-4bb6-a2f3-0f6d08430a55
I don’t know much about the registry file format or the Windows APIs, but it’s possible that smaller data types wouldn’t save space due to alignment requirements for the datastructures.
Like other options of its ilk, this surely ultimately just sets a flag in the registry someplace, which anyone can do once we figure out what the path to that flag is.
Incidentally, although I have not had to do this in a long time, you can move a copy of the Group Policy Management snap-in (gpedit.msc) from a Windows 10 pro/enterprise/whatever machine over to a Win10 Home machine and run it, and it’ll Just Work.
Edit:
Found it. The value is in:
Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsCopilotThe value is literally just called
TurnOffWindowsCopilot.That was easy, for a change.
I confirmed that twiddling the Group Policy setting sets this to either 0 or 1.
This is also adjacent to the “Disable Windows Consumer Features” setting, which is located right next to it in
CloudContent.Another flag most sane people will want to set to 1.
Please, tell me more about this:
Holy shit “we and our 1500 partners we share your data with respect your privacy”
Lol that awful didn’t realize xda had fallen so far
Yeah I had the same observation recently, especially when I got that popup and then couldn’t find anything relevant to what I was looking for. It’s just a random tech blog now.
XDA forums (search for that) is the old xda.
Despite God mode, you still can’t delete system files. Linux wins again.
You absolutely can, it’s just not easy.
It’s a universal settings app that you can launch by naming a file to a verifica specific string
IDDQD, if M$ were based
have you heard of our lord and savior linux
You ought to see the instructions given a couple of months ago for a complete uninstall.
PowerToy ehh? 🤔
To my surprise , I started using copilot very often.its convenient in work laptop. P.S my personal laptop doesn’t have this shit (Linux) but its really helps when you got to look something up real quick.
By the time I typed out “how to disable” auto correct guessed “copilot” was the next word. Clever girl.
Removed by mod
I did the very same recently and found that the first advice actually stops extra edge processes from running, so I’m good with that.
