What I'd kind of like with something like Copilot in a text editor, assuming it's going to be included in the first place, would be recommendations to fix formatting or a source to help find issues in config files.
"It looks like you're trying to write a suicide note. Would you like help with that?"
But now it's going to be AI transforming "remove all files from the storeroom" into "rm -r *"...
- giving the ones, who do not care for formatting, copilot in the only writing programm in windows/standard.
- allowing MSFT to push their copilot to users in an effort to establish it and to force users into an MSFT-Account
I don't like it either..
Sure, unlike the rest of the industry, which has taken a noticeably restrained approach to AI... But, oh, wait, this is El Reg, so it's all to be taken with a whole shaker full of salt.
Anyway, PSA time: if you're on Windows, and you dislike anything about the "New Notepad" experience (for me, the inexplicable approach to tab handling was the dealbreaker), here are the arduous steps required to get rid of it:
1. Find Notepad in your Start menu, right-click its icon, select Uninstall.
Yeah, I know... (FAQ: "Will this restore my precious notepad.exe to its previous functionality, which is wrapping the Win32 text edit control without any frills? Yes!")
There's donkey right in the corner of the bottom search bar reminding me that today is "World Donkey Day". On the other corner is some random info clicking, which I get breaking news, weather, and stock-related info. I just begin using the system, when there's popup about co-pilot chat or something. Search is almost useless as it seems more interested in returning bing-related results vs what's actually on my computer.
Everything seems to be designed to maximize 'user engagement' of products that are hot right now, and what upper management seems to be interested in. The news is no surprise as it seems everyone in the company is rallying behind AI efforts without paying heed to user experience.
That's precisely what it is. Pointless middle managers will do anything to juice their engagement numbers and get that promotion. Microsoft as a whole considers customers a resource to be exploited. The subjective experience of users is not even a point of discussion because metrics "prove" that users love copilot popups every fifteen seconds.
Crazy times.
I just completely disagree with the philosophy of software being something that is constantly updated and changed (of course it needs updates but less is more here, instead of the usual CI/CD with daily production updates every day). We could have solid and reliable software that optimizes for stability, but that would cost companies more money so instead they allow themselves all the runway they need to fix and update as much as needed and they can cut costs around testing and engineering while using end users as their testers.
I'm definitely looking into Linux but unfortunately I do like Nvidia GPUs and I have concerns around that. Regardless, it's not tha I don't want to pay for an OS. MacOS is basically the best of both worlds, but I wish there was something like MacOS for PCs. I heard Valve is making a SteamOS, and I think that looks promising.
*(as I remember there are two files, Reboot_AC and Reboot_Battery)
I use notepad as a copy/paste tool to strip formatting and make minor edits. I paste a lot of sensitive information there; I already had to turn off the "restore content on reopen" feature, this is disturbing that I am not sure whether having Copilot enabled could possibly send content to an LLM unprompted (maybe it's just menu-driven but I don't know...)
98codes•4h ago
We'll all survive.
timewizard•4h ago
It's like writing on a wall that most of Hacker News just does not want to observe.
vel0city•4h ago
This is pretty untrue, considering how much other stuff they're putting Copilot into.
Chances are a few people working on all the rest of the new stuff with Notepad thought it would be fun to add it, and managed to get it in. It probably didn't take much to add.
krapp•4h ago
perching_aix•4h ago
Yes, I know you can set up your own Bot Framework identity that then brokers everything to a model. But one would think that they'd want people to be able to just chat with Copilot where folks chat with everyone else.
vel0city•3h ago
This is definitely a feature for Teams for all platforms I have Teams installed on.
On the Android app, there's a Copilot icon at the top right next to the search button. Pressing that takes me to a prompt to talk to Copilot.
On the Windows app, there's an icon in the left nav bar.
EDIT: Looking at thinking about it though, it would be nice to be able to say add copilot to a group chat and be able to @copilot or whatever within the room, have it respond, and have its response be shared with everyone like any other chat participant.
perching_aix•2h ago
Closely related, all this session management crap is what drives me personally insane, not the presence of AI. Might again be just the organizational policies making things fall apart though. But my expected experience would be to just log in to Windows, and have Copilot just working everywhere. Not log into Copilot in Edge, log into Copilot in VS Code, log into Copilot in (...). So annoying.