Microsoft isn't removing Copilot from Windows 11, it's just renaming it

https://www.neowin.net/opinions/microsoft-isnt-removing-copilot-from-windows-11-its-just-renaming-it/

117•bundie•2h ago

Comments

lemonish97•2h ago

From the article: "Additionally, AI features in Notepad settings has been renamed to Advanced features and it allows users to toggle off AI capabilities within the app."

I honestly don't mind this, as long as it's not being forced. And I believe this feature exists only within their npu PCs.

tosti•1h ago

IMHO they're just hiding the wolf in sheep clothing. Can't complain about AI if it's not called AI. Modern problems require modern solutions, you get the idea. The snark in TFA about shareholders and stakeholders hits the nail on the head.

hootz•1h ago

But it's just so unnecessary. Everyone has always expected Notepad to be a simple utility as it has always been, why does it need optional AI features? It just feels like bloat.

Sharlin•1h ago

Reminder that this is the company that decided to replace Paint with something called "Paint 3D", the laggiest and bloatiest "literally nobody wanted this" drawing app I've ever seen.

hydrogen7800•1h ago

Ugh, I can no longer press win key and type "p a i enter". I now have to find the old paint manually.

hilariously•59m ago

win+r - mspaint - enter

hydrogen7800•47m ago

Thanks! Also useful for an old win10 machine I have, and probably shouldn't be using anymore, that no longer responds to clicking the start menu button...

esafak•46m ago

They don't even do substring search??

xp84•37m ago

Apparently there’s a proper app launcher in PowerToys.

whynotmaybe•1h ago

Must be some Mandela effect but I'm sure that Paint.net was supposed to replace mspaint when it was started.

Sharlin•1h ago

It was supposed to be a third-party replacement, sure, but certainly not an official one. It started as a student project. It's just the prefix that tricks your brain to associate it with MS's own .NET branded applications.

saghm•1h ago

To be fair, the .NET brand is already super convoluted (there's .NET framework, the .NET core, .NET runtime, the .NET desktop runtime, the .NET sdk, and I'm genuinely not even sure which if any of these might refer to the same thing), on top of it weirdly sounding like something internet related to a casual user.

Sharlin•57m ago

Yes, "Copilot" is not the first brand that MS has tried to stick to everything while being just as confused about it as (inevitably) the consumers. Although somehow they did manage to keep .NET mostly aimed at developers - besides the actual frameworks there's Visual Studio .NET and other dev tools, but I'm actually a bit surprised that they never had "Office .NET" or "Outlook .NET" or even "Windows .NET Edition" or something like that. Maybe they still had some sane people in charge of marketing and brand management back then.

xp84•38m ago

They did brand the Microsoft accounts themselves, from “Passport” to “.NET Passport” for a while. That was before they were “Windows Live IDs.”

cwnyth•1h ago

Paint.NET wasn't Microsoft's, but was an independent app: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint.NET

mlnj•1h ago

I remember how Skype, an awesome piece of software transformed into Lync, which worked fairly well, slowly transformed into whatever MS wanted to call it year after year, slower and more buggy than the year before.

Rohansi•1h ago

It was never replaced. Paint 3D was an entirely different app for 3D art only. It's also been gone for a few years now.

Sharlin•1h ago

It was absolutely sold as a replacement. And it's gone now because literally nobody wanted it, used it, or understood why it existed. Sure, you could still find the old Paint in a disused lavatory behind a locked door with a sign "beware of the leopard". It wasn't even installed by default, unlike the 3D version, or do I recall incorrectly? Even MS isn't so stupid as to ship two separate accessories both called "Paint" in the same OS by default!

wlesieutre•53m ago

And a weird obsession with making it impossible to customize the sidebar in Explorer, so there was a “3D Objects” folder stuck there permanently unless you’re the kind of user who doesn’t mind a trip to the registry editor.

What percent of users ever found that useful? I think I’m being generous to guess one in ten thousand.

Absolutely braindead management running Windows development.

https://www.thewindowsclub.com/remove-3d-objects-folder-wino...

Sharlin•48m ago

Yeah, the "3D Objects" thing is just surreal. You can't make this stuff up.

lynndotpy•26m ago

When I stopped using Windows, it was because it required so much constant upkeep and maintenance to stay usable. You had to stay on top of the latest tool that disables tracking, things like Cortana you'd want to remove, the latest toggles you have to disable, what toggles revert themselves when you update. These all exist behind different shifting UI toggles which are not accessibly automatable. And all the while, you have to hope your registry edits don't force you to a lengthy reinstall where you have to redo all of these.

I could be wrong, but as far as I know there's not one "Fix Windows 11" tool maintained to do all this for you.

"You have to toggle AI features off in Notepad, and they changed the name to Advanced Features now," is just another heaving brick on the pile.

tracker1•25m ago

I really think MS should have just resurrected the "Wordpad" app name for what the new "Nptepad" does. It would be far less annoying if they'd just done that.

saghm•1h ago

If I'm understanding correctly, you have to go into "advanced" features to turn off AI? So someone who doesn't think they're an expert who needs advanced features might not ever go and look there? I'd argue that "advanced" features are something that a casual user would expect to be off by default and need to go out of their way to enable.

mcdeltat•1h ago

"advanced" in 2026 is closer to "using the app how you want to as rather than the way that will generate the corporation maximum profits"

Topfi•1h ago

The "AI" additions to Notepad are not limited to systems with an NPU. Why would they be, it's powered by LLMs running on Azure [0].

These sudden additions also correlated with the first CVE [1] in Notepad since its inception, so maybe their attention isn't where it should be.

I for one very much mind this and many other inclusions including the metastatic takeover off Office. OneDrive also was forced upon and severely worsened functioning software, despite not being "AI", so there is precedent at least.

[0] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/enhance-your-wri...

[1] https://infosecwriteups.com/the-dumb-editor-that-got-too-sma...

noir_lord•1h ago

Be better if there was a global "Disable AI" option easily found in the settings that is a flag everywhere.

Some of us (including very much me) simply do not want Copilot/AI anything and playing whackamole with settings is annoying but we'll do it anyway and it leaves a bad taste.

Since it's the software equivalent of been in a filing cabinet in the basement behind a door that has a sign saying "Beware the Leopard".

In reality it's a moot point, I disable AI features and Windows is a gloried steamos box for me at this point, I do my actual computing booted into Linux and have for decades.

jgalt212•1h ago

> I honestly don't mind this, as long as it's not being forced.

This is indeed a step forward. With QuickBooks, there is currently no way to disable their extremely intrusive AI. I may just vibe-code a browser extension to block it. Fight fire with fire.

tosti•1h ago

https://archive.ph/M7Bv5

protoster•1h ago

> At the start of the year, Microsoft generated a lot of goodwill among Windows 11 fans when it announced its big plan to fix the operating system in 2026

The only thing generated was boatloads of incredulity and some laughs.

benterix•1h ago

Yeah, I remember the same. Also, "Windows 11 fans" sounds like an oxymoron.

tosti•1h ago

It could relate to the amount of *pu and system fans needed to run so much bloatware :)

bilekas•1h ago

Might be considered "Windows 11 Hostages" instead given they've dropped support for using anything else.

bluescrn•6m ago

Wondering how long I can hold out on Win10...

jmclnx•1h ago

No surprise for large companies, one company even renamed itself but its approval ratings still stayed in the basement.

A fortune 500 company I worked for renamed internal projects many times when the original failed. But they continued dumping money into those black holes. One dollar eating project was renamed 3 times and was on its way for a 4th rename when I left. That project was started between 2005 and 2010. I was not involved with it, but everyone knew it would fail.

So M/S renaming copilot ? I expect a few more renames as time goes on :)

benterix•1h ago

> At the start of the year, Microsoft generated a lot of goodwill among Windows 11 fans when it announced its big plan to fix the operating system in 2026.

Interesting, I can't recall a single voice "Oh I'm so happy they changed their corporate strategy" but many of "I'll believe it when I see it".

shevy-java•1h ago

Ah, you make a great point - I made almost the same comment a moment ago, because I remember that Microslop babbled about "we will listen to the community" some weeks ago. Guess it was indeed at the start of the year.

So those who were skeptic were right - one can not trust Microslop. Its AI addiction is too strong already. It sold its soul to AI. There is no way back for Microslop anymore. All Win11 users will have to support AI. AI up all the things! \o/

shevy-java•1h ago

Didn't Microsoft say it will listen to the community, some weeks ago? And now it looks as if Microsoft did not tell the truth. To be fair: I think Microsoft actually has no alternative option. They sold out to AI and all Win11 users will have to support the hype train. I am so glad to have switched to Linux a long time ago.

whynotmaybe•1h ago

Well, they heard that we don't like copilot in notepad so they removed "copilot" from notepad.

And right after that they added a brand new feature called tolipoc that will revolutionize the way you analyze your logs or modify your 17 year old cmd file!

Want to create a file with the current date and time? No need to google for it, tolipoc will do it for you!

a1o•1h ago

Is the last sentence a reference to the .LOG classic notepad hack?

pndy•22m ago

You prob recall this thing from 23 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47459296

For me there's nothing MS could do at this point that would bring me back. And as I said in that thread, it's too late for them - people are moving elsewhere, maybe not in big numbers but exodus is in progress. MS harassed their users/clients too hard and for too long; now it's time to "enjoy" fruits of their deranged actions and decisions.

xacky•1h ago

Copilot has been reduced to "Internet Explorer" status, where it is the "AI to download another AI".

_HMCB_•1h ago

Seems like what Apple does with Writing Assistant. At least in this case, it’s opt-in. You have to click. I don’t run Windows so I don’t know if this implementation is vastly superior or not.

Shank•4m ago

If you turn off Apple Intelligence, it’s one switch and features like that are gone from every single location.

wing-_-nuts•1h ago

I have windows on my desktop pc because it's easier to get executable mods (downgraders, engine fixes, etc) working on windows than linux. There's also the matter of 'kernel level anti-cheat' games not working.

But if I just judge windows vs linux, on even ground, W11 is painful. I've main'd linux on my laptop for ~ 25 years. There was a time when it was a jank experience that I put up with for better devex, but that ended in the late 00's. From that point forward, unless you were trying to get bleeding edge hardware to work, linux has been hands down better.

It's enough that I've considered giving up online play all together just to have a nicer computing experience.

californical•1h ago

I just run two drives - one with windows and one with Linux.

I treat the windows one as a console essentially, not even logged into my password manager or email or anything. It is only for games. Basically an Xbox, with all sorts of normal annoying UX, but it doesn’t matter for all of the ~2 minutes until I can launch a game

Separate linux drive for everything else.

wing-_-nuts•1h ago

That's ...not the dumbest idea I've ever heard. Now I just have to wait till prices come down on ssds again. While I can of course afford it, it wounds my soul to pay the AI / tariff tax on components.

fhd2•55m ago

I typically install both systems on the same disk, different partitions. Then work with additional SSDs strictly for game storage. Only annoying bit is that some games _need_ to be on C, but very few in my experience. If you have enough space to shrink your Windows partition, that could work without waiting for an SSD. Though I guess the one OS per disk setup is ultimately cleaner.

Been dual booting for >20 years now. It's nice that some games work on Linux pretty well these days, and of course I had fun messing with Wine manually to get some stuff to work decades ago. But it really doesn't bother me too much to reboot when switching between gaming and literally anything else.

keyringlight•8m ago

The issue that has occurred a few times is that some windows updates will decide that they 'own' the disk it's installed on or knows better than whoever is running the system, and overwrite any other boot manager with window's own and you may need to break out a live boot to recover it. Using a single isolated disc at OS install time (if you can have multiple physical drives) and using a motherboard boot selection hotkey means that risk likely goes away.

ghighi7878•1h ago

I have a windows machine connected to my TV for games. Thats it. 1000 Euro machine with 500 Euro GPU. Also use it for govts windows only thingies.

dathinab•27m ago

Similar for me but I mostly play single player small studio games/no mods, and on Steam/Linux there are enough "out of the box working" games to fill all the time I still have left for gaming.

It's not perfect, but I anyway had the computer for other reasons and may need it for the other reasons again after which I would need to re-setup anything. Bazite default/w. SteamOS UI install + a minor number of setting changes (1) and a login to steam and it's ready to go again. Can't complain. Just which the SteamOS UI version would also do the same background download+apply of updates the main versions or distros like Fedora Silverblue do.

While not quite yet console experience, for many games it really is not "that" far away. (For some other games very much very far away, don't expect any competitive PvP games or games with real world money related online economy working. To some degree it's not even about anti-cheat not working on Linux. It's about many such games struggling making it work on Windows and having no room to bother with another platform, and dishonest managers potentially using "all Linux fault" as an excuse when the anti-cheating strategy failed on Windows where most of their players where... (happened before))

(

1): Mainly SteamOS UI is made for Handhelds and as such has some bad defaults for more powerful desktops (which likely will change soon). I'm only couch gaming on it, hence close to everything else just stays with default settings. Sure it's not fancy customized Linux or most maximal privacy preserving Linux. But it's in the "good enough" area of settings, privacy and similar, which Windows in many aspects isn't anymore. No fighting windows forcing things down your throat, weather it's Copilot, the nasty way it tries to deceive you into using it's online drive, etc.

---

Oh and as minor tip: You can majorly micro optimize kernels, schedulers, drivers etc. If you don't need to, then don't bother. That is where unexpected perf. regressions, issues after updates etc. come in. Like you still find reports about Bazzite being slower then windows due to them having don that in the past and having run into an unexpected perf. regression on some hardware without realizing. I mean it is fun to tinker. But I'm in the "please mostly just work" age by now.

MiddleEndian•55m ago

Anecdotally, my (smart but doesn't really care much about computers) fiancee was able to get all dozen of her mods for The Sims working on Bazzite Linux without any help from me besides a chmod +x to one script.

But we don't play any online multiplayer games, so YMMV on that one.

connicpu•49m ago

For me last year was the tipping point, with Windows 10 hitting EOL I refused to move to the buggy mess of 11. All the games I regularly play are now nearly flawless in proton and games that refuse to run on Linux just don't exist for me anymore. Admittedly I already didn't play the kinds of highly competitive online games that like to use KLAC, so might be a tougher sell if that's your jam. Most of my game time goes to FF14 and GW2.

pawelduda•49m ago

I repeat this story every now and then but I "maintain" a 18 years old laptop with Ubuntu (mainly for Internet) for non-tech savvy user. I put it in quotes because I just run apt update every now and then - that's it. Just works. The only bottleneck is how resource-hungry browsers got over time but it remains usable. Ubuntu was installed sometime back in 2017 and there was no need for fresh reinstall since then.

rbanffy•25m ago

I did that for my mom. At some point she learned to click through the Ubuntu updater and she kept her machine updated by herself. I only kept tabs on her computer via the server monitoring tooling I had on my network.

Barbing•11m ago

This sounds like the move, vs. having mum on Win+Chrome.

If people had set their family members up with Firefox and Ublock Origin, then the Manifest v2 deprecation wouldn’t have resulted in seniors getting hit with certain scams. Specifically over the period between deprecation and the next visit from tech savvy family members.

Unforgivable btw

Edit - Linux bit’s important too b/c of MS nagscreens that could try to upsell

Aardwolf•29m ago

I don't seem to have issues modding games like Skyrim, Fallout 4 or Factorio on Linux

wing-_-nuts•23m ago

Do you use executable mods? Downgraders, engine fixes, etc? I'm also curious what mod manager you use, because getting MO2 to work under linux is a bit janky as well.

dathinab•17m ago

it's a question of tooling, modding kits

most times it this tooling which causes issues not the mod itself

For very popular games it's not rare if moddingkit/tooling producer (or contributes) made the tooling work on Linux, but it can be very hit or miss.

but it increasingly more "just works", kinda, somewhat

tracker1•27m ago

I tend to run pretty close to the edge on hardware (9950x, 9070xt, gen5 nvme)... I've had a few issues with that in Linux... that said, I've been using Linux as the main OS on my desktop for a while now, and when I upgraded about a year ago, I ditched the Windows drive entirely.

I do have a Windows Server 2025 and Win11 VM running for a couple testing issues, but that's about it. That said, there seems to be a few integration issues on Wayland where the RDP client or the VM UI both will not intercept hotkeys like alt-tab, which makes it kind of painful to use the VM effectively.

Even with the rough edges in Cosmic, I'll still take it over the jank they keep addding to Windows.

vidarh•11m ago

Yeah, I mostly stopped checking hardware compatibility for Linux ~10 years ago. Every now and again there's an issue, but it's usually easy to work around, or I wait a little bit and it's resolved. When it got to the point that I felt I didn't need to check any more, it was a big deal.

TheGRS•8m ago

Its always been a momentum thing for me, grew up on Windows, esp in my LAN party days. The guys running linux couldn't play 90% of the games the rest of us were. When dev became more important to me I would typically reach for something else because the windows dev experience always kind of sucked IMO (unless you were a .NET person, which for the most part I was not).

I have a spare laptop with Pop OS on it now and I'm really enjoying it. Kind of forget I'm on it sometimes. I'm considering putting it as my OS for my main powerful laptop that I play most of my games on.

iLoveOncall•7m ago

I run Windows 11 as my main desktop (and use Mac at work and have a bunch of servers / NAS where I run debian), and W11 is not painful at all.

I installed the Professional edition, disabled a few settings that I don't like the first time I installed it, and haven't had any issue or friction since then.

Meanwhile I'm constantly frustrated at MacOS and obviously you can't do anything on Linux without running into some sort of trouble.

kotaKat•1h ago

It's almost as if Microsoft really loves to assault and abuse its users and claim its for our own good.

I'm tired of being a victim.

luxuryballs•54m ago

I hope this is better than seeing that Copilot logo infecting every menu, I’ve had to use registry hacks to get rid of that thing.

rdiddly•31m ago

So they didn't remove it, they just renamed it? Reminds me of that time we fixed racism by renaming the master branch to main.

claudiug•27m ago

all the racism is gone now /s

rbanffy•24m ago

The BDSM community felt attacked.

Barbing•4m ago

Maybe comparing <the sum total of annoyance from reading the old name> to <the current sum total of annoyance reading the current name>, it was a positive direction overall?

rbanffy•22m ago

Microsoft Live Copilot anyone?

kjs3•16m ago

Needs more 'Clippy'.

rbanffy•7m ago

Live Clippy sounds very creepy.

porridgeraisin•5m ago

The copilot executable and the edge executable are actually the same! It looks at argv[0] to decide which to show you. You can move mscopilot.exe to msedge.exe, it still opens edge. And vice versa.

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