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ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Copilot can be disabled, uninstalled, or blocked from returning in Windows.
- Removing Copilot may improve performance and reduce resource use.
- Fully eliminating Copilot requires advanced settings.
Microsoft keeps touting its Copilot AI as the greatest invention since the wheel. Toward that end, the company has been force-feeding more and more AI into Windows in the belief that everyone is yearning for an “agentic OS.” Well, based on much of the user feedback, that’s not quite the case.
In fact, the more Microsoft keeps promoting AI as some white knight riding in to rescue Windows users, the more that people have been pushing back. The main argument?
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Instead of devoting so much time and energy on AI, Microsoft should concentrate on fixing the many bugs, flaws, and weaknesses that still plague Windows. Rather than being served an agentic OS, people simply want a cleaner and more reliable platform that hosts their applications and files without all the AI bells and whistles.
Though Copilot is built into Windows, the AI itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I use Copilot in Windows from time to time, and it can be helpful. I do enjoy chatting with my favorite British Copilot voice to get help or suggestions on different topics. But I try to use it sparingly and judiciously. That’s because like any AI, Copilot is far from perfect.
Copilot can make mistakes. It can provide wrong information, aka hallucinate. It can tap into your private data if you’re not careful. It can also hog up memory and system resources if you use it heavily. For those reasons and more, you may want to disable or remove Copilot from Windows so it no longer gets in your way.
How to disable or remove Copilot from Windows
Putting the kibosh on Copilot is essentially the same in both Windows 10 and 11. Here, I’ll use Windows 11 as the guinea pig. I’ll also present this in steps of varying degrees so you can disable and remove Copilot as little or as much as you want.
By default, the Copilot Windows app likes to start up automatically as soon as you launch the OS. So right off the bat, it’s chewing up a chunk of memory. To remove it from your startup routine but otherwise keep it around, right-click on the taskbar and select Task Manager from the menu. At the Task Manager window, click the icon for Startup apps. Right-click on the entry for Copilot and select Disable from the menu.
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Alternatively, go to Settings, select Apps, and then click Startup. Turn off the switch for Copilot.
There is one downside here. If you open Copilot and then close its window, the app remains in memory, again hogging system resources. To actually close the app, you have to right-click on its system tray icon and select Exit.
Alternatively, head to the Windows 11 Start menu and either scroll down the screen or go to the Apps section. Right-click on the entry for Copilot and select Uninstall. Either action will remove Copilot from Windows.
Ahh, but there’s more to do if you want to completely get rid of Copilot. Even if you uninstall it, the app could resurface courtesy of a future Windows Update.
To prevent any future installations of Copilot through Windows Update, you’ll need to turn to Group Policy on your PC.
Press Win+R to display the Run dialog box. In the text field, type gpedit.msc and click OK.
In the Group Policy Editor, navigate to the following section:
User Configuration | Administrative Templates | Windows Components | Windows Copilot.
Open the setting for “Turn off Windows Copilot” and set it to Enabled. Click OK and then close the editor.
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Windows 11 Home doesn’t come with the Group Policy Editor, so you have to perform a Registry hack if you’re running this version. In the Run window, type regedit to open the Registry Editor. Head to the following key: HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwarePoliciesMicrosoftWindows.
Right-click in the empty area on the right, go to New and select Key. Name it WindowsCopilot. With the WindowsCopilot key selected, right-click on the right, go to New and select DWORD (32-bit) Value. Name the new value TurnOffWindowsCopilot. Double-click the value, set the Value Data to 1, and then click OK.
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Even with Copilot gone, certain AI components and hooks remain in Windows. You can remove them, but the process typically involves more Group Policy changes and Registry edits. However, there are some automated scripts you can use to handle the process instead.
First up, a script on GitHub called Remove Windows AI lets you choose which AI components you wish to remove. Created by an account named zoicware, this one works easily enough through PowerShell.
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I’ve run the script in Windows test VMs, and it seems to work as promised. I might be wary of running it on a production machine without knowing exactly what it’s doing behind the scenes. If you try it, I’d advise you to turn to the built-in System Protection feature to create a system restore point beforehand.
Another option is available through the free Flyoobe tool, which normally lets you upgrade any Windows 10 PC to a plain, vanilla flavor of Windows 11. With the latest version of Flyoobe, you can control and remove various AI settings.
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After installing the program, run the downloaded FlyOOBE.exe file as an administrator. In the program, click the Details button under AI Experiences and then select Check. The tool will scan your system to see which AI components are enabled. Click the checkbox for any you want to disable and then select the button for Turn off selected. As with Remove Windows AI, I’d recommend creating a system restore point beforehand just to be on the safe side.
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