Banish Copilot from Microsoft Windows

There are few things that will piss me off as quickly as trying to perform a perfectly normal everyday action on my computer and being bombarded with AI suggestions, popups, and sneaky-ass data stealing. If you're the same, you'd probably love to see that little rainbow Copilot app disappear from your computer.

Since I have to be dragged by my feet into any Windows update, I'm still operating in Windows 10 and don't have quite as much AI nightmare to deal with, so I've gathered some of this information and screenshots from this article by Abhijith M B and this one by Chris Hoffman.

What's with the multiple personalities: Windows Copilot & Microsoft 365 Copilot?

Purely for Microsoft's product marketing/pricing reasons, there are two separate Copilots, and you may or may not have both on your computer. Microsoft Copilot will show up free on your computer or in Edge.

The separate Microsoft 365 Copilot is a paid service you may have been automatically opted into that integrates with your Microsoft 365 apps—documents, emails, spreadsheets, calendars, etc.

Banish free Windows Copilot Completely

If you want to uninstall Copilot, you'll want to go to your Start menu and find your settings.

In the menu that opens, you'll select Apps. Somewhere in that list you'll spy this persistent beast. Click that sexy lil "Uninstall" option.

Just make Copilot quit bugging me so damn much

You don't want to fully uninstall the bugger, just get it out of your way so you quit accidentally clicking it when you're trying to do something else? Here are some options:

Stop Copilot from launching when your computer starts up

This just keeps Copilot from running in the background automatically from the moment your computer opens its sleepy little eyes. Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to launch the Task Manager, and then click "Startup apps" on the left side.

Click on Copilot and then the Disable button, and you're good to go.

Stop "Ask Copilot" from showing up every time I right-click on a file

If you don't want to uninstall Copilot, this one's a little more technical because you're going to have to get into your Registry. I hope your playlist just hit a really dramatic song from the Matrix, and shout-out to Roland Freist for sharing how to do this because I'd never have come up with it.

In the search on your taskbar, type "Registry Editor" and select this lovely gentleman when he appears:

On the left side of that window, you'll see a list of folders. The one you want follows this path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Shell Extensions\

If you're lucky, there will already be a key in Shell Extensions called "Blocked," but as you can see in this screenshot, I was not lucky:

To get it, right-click on Shell Extensions, go to New > Key and name that new key "Blocked."

Now right-click on "Blocked," select "New string" and give it the name {CB3B0003-8088-4EDE-8769-8B354AB 2FF8C}. Include the brackets! Wipe your sweating brow, double-click on the character string, and enter "Ask Copilot" as the value. Then click "OK".

Congratulations! Ask Copilot should be gone as a right-click option, and you can go have the little treat that super-hacking the mainframe or whatever deserves.

Banish Microsoft 365 Copilot

The cool thing about this ritual is it's also a money spell; since this is a paid service, you can "downgrade" your Microsoft 365 subscription to get rid of Copilot and save money!

Go to this link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365. You'll need to sign in in the top right corner. Under "Plans and pricing," you see which subscriptions include Copilot:

If you don't need Outlook or Teams, you can do a one-time purchase of the core four apps—Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote—without uploading your stuff to OneDrive (which Microsoft's current policy says it does not use to train AI, but is functionally capable of) or having Copilot available.

There are also free and and basic subscriptions for online app access without Copilot:

Depending on which subscription you use (and how Microsoft changes its offerings with each update), you may still need to disable Copilot features within their apps like Microsoft Office, Microsoft Photos, Notepad, and Paint.

Other places AI hides in Microsoft Windows:

Windows Click To Do

Windows Recall

Windows AI Audio Enhancement & Studio Effects