Copilot coming to Windows 10 to help navigate the OS's twilight years
- Reference: 1700229914
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/11/17/microsoft_to_bring_copilot_to/
- Source link:
Copilot is on the way to Windows 10 22H2 Home and Pro users, less than two years before Microsoft is due to [1]pull the plug on support. Windows 10 Release Preview Insiders will be the first to feel the cold, dead hand of Microsoft's latest attempt at an assistant. Still, they will need to switch on the "Get the latest updates as soon as they're available" setting in Windows Update and await their turn for the – still in preview – Copilot experience.
One can but hope the assistant will ditch the preview moniker before Windows 10 breathes its last.
[2]
It is unclear if Microsoft intends to further squeeze further value from its Windows 10 user base with more AI-infused functionality culled from its Windows 11 sibling. The company is still set on killing off Windows 10 in 2025.
[3]Windows Server 2022 update gave ESXi host VMs the blue screen blues
[4]Windows users can soon ditch Bing, Edge, other bundleware – but only in the EU
[5]Take Windows 11... please. Leaks confirm low numbers for Microsoft's latest OS
[6]If you really can't let go of Windows 7, Microsoft will keep things secure for another three years
In its post, the company said: "The Windows 10 end of support date of October 14, 2025, is unchanged."
But here's Copilot in the meantime.
[7]
Even the most ardent Microsoft apologist would struggle to describe Windows 11 as a roaring success compared to its predecessor. Recent [8]reports put the active device usage of the operating system as finally cresting the 400 million mark, not too shabby until one considers how much farther along Windows 10 was at the same point in its lifecycle.
There are many reasons behind this, not least the insistence on minimum hardware requirements that render perfectly acceptable computers obsolete with little discernible benefit to users.
[9]
Unless it has a change of heart – and you just know the company will extend a lifeline to its enterprise customers, [10]Windows 7 style .
However, while the clock ticks and the landfills await, some Windows 10 users will at least get a chance to prod Microsoft's new AI-powered assistant. Before closing it down because they've had years to learn how their operating system works. Even if they don't have too many years left to use it. ®
Get our [11]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/27/microsoft_petitioned_to_keep_windows/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZVecNvsp8vHEtydi7u8hoAAAAJc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/16/microsoft_windows_server_patch/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/17/windows_bing_edge_eu_dma/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/18/take_windows_11_please/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2019/10/02/windows_7_extended_security/
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZVecNvsp8vHEtydi7u8hoAAAAJc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/18/take_windows_11_please/
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZVecNvsp8vHEtydi7u8hoAAAAJc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2019/10/02/windows_7_extended_security/
[11] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Déjà vu all over again
They should rename their AI gizmo: "Clipilot," perhaps, or maybe "Coclippy."
Re: Déjà vu all over again
Some repressed memories are rearing their ugly heads at the mere mention of Clippy. What is it that makes artificial cheerfulness (AC) make me as a user feel the need to apply the 230 V kind of AC to various parts of a computer's anatomy that were never intended for it? Let's face it, Eddy the shipboard computer in the HHGTTG was far more annoying than Marvin the paranoid android ever could be.
Hidden the moment it arrived
I despise helpers that watch what I am doing. So I disabled it the moment it was installed. Or more accurately I hid it. MS is probably still spying and phoning home. Same as all the other megacorps we allow into our lives.
I remember when Clippy turned up in Word. The whole team spent the next couple of hours discovering how to disable it. That was before the WWW was commonly available and we had no external resources to use. By 10am Clippy was banished. (Dave, it looks like you are trying to kill me... yup)
Re: Hidden the moment it arrived
I've been selected by my employer as a victim test dummy tester for our pilot (their pun, not mine!) program of using Copilot. My first instinct was to see if I could opt-out. But after some reflection, having someone who actually knows how to use their computer explaining how much Copilot slowed them down with nothing useful to show for it would be useful feedback.
I'm really expecting Copilot to be a "controlled flight into terrain"...
Plan to slow Windows 10?
Maybe they think they can overburden older computers to slow them down and make people upgrade? I have a nice, fast computer with a cracking graphics card, but Windows 11 doesn't like my processor. Looks like I'll finally make the jump to Linux in 2025.
Re: Plan to slow Windows 10 - try the other side, its less hassle (mainly)
Windows has become a tool to allow Microsoft to poke its nose into our lives (the OS equivalent of Google Chrome) Oh for the happy days of Windows 7 when the OS (mainly) did what it was asked and nothing more.
When I noticed I seemed to be spending more time fighting Windows, than using it, I gave up and migrated to Linux Mint. An Apple OS initially appealed (because of greater software choices) before I recognised I would likewise be forced into not infrequent hardware purchases to keep current with Mac OS - so another financial treadmill to avoid.
I decided because of security concerns to give the Linux Wine windows emulator a miss and instead use a locked down Windows 10 VM running within Linux for some local windows specific scanning software, Microsoft Money and Mailstore (to archive/backup my external email)
As regards Windows talking to the mothership I blocked every Microsoft ASN I could find at my home firewall (as I likewise do for Google, Amazon, Facebook, Adobe, Yahoo and Oracle) I do allow access, but only on device specific as of need basis.
My approach does break things - a lot of firms utilise Azure for instance, so web browsing can be intermittent, and it does hi light that Apple seems to avail itself of Cloud competitors storage when hosting iCloud et al …. but everything in life comes at a cost.
More recently my Win 10 VM seems to be talking to the mothership once again, so I have taken the nuclear approach of blocking all outbound connections from the VM except specific AV updates and access to Mailstore.
I feel more in control and I have learned a lot trying to repair what my restrictions break. We aim to loose by the smallest possible margin.
Now where’s my tin foil hat gone ?
Re: Plan to slow Windows 10 - try the other side, its less hassle (mainly)
May I ask what VM software you're running under Linux? I'm currently doing the opposite - running Zorin in a VM under Windows 10. But my long-term goal is to use Linux as a host thereby completely doing away with Windows. Thanks!
Just another opportunity...
For tools like NTlite and BCUninstaller to add to their own functionality in trimming back windows cruft........
Why are Microsoft being so obstinate?
They seem to really not want to move on the hardware requirements. The insistence is beyond any kind of sense. The lack of enthusiasm for Win11 is very marked, almost as if people don't see why they should replace their device to get exactly no benefit. No, your new PC is not significantly better than your 4-year-old-PC.
Which makes one suspect that there is a metric buttload of money heading their way from... where? ... to ensure that we all buy new PCs in October 2025.
Most people don't read El Reg, so they won't be installing Mint. But might a lot move to Apple instead?
::sigh:: operating systems need less clutter, not more crap to get in the user's way.
I suppose it makes sense to port the thing to Windows 10, though - why should all the stubborn holdouts be able to elude the clutches of copilot by, effectively, doing nothing?
Plus, a goodly few of them may not upgrade just so they don't have this crap thrust upon them. Thrust it anyway, and there's one less reason to stay with Windows 10.
It's most unfortunate that micros~1 has been so incapable of producing a clean, usable operating system that they now feel they must add a copilot to help the meatsacks through the day. Shame Nad's Army won't see it that way.