On a couple of complaints made on Windows 11, I wanted to clarify one and to explain something I just discovered on the other.
1. Need Microsoft account.
Yes, but this is no big deal. All you have to do is get a free hotmail or outlook email account. Similarly, I had to get a free gmail account, to be able to transfer the content of my old Android phone to a new one, some years ago.
2. Where is my copilot icon? I thought it was supposed to show up on my taskbar.
Maybe I'm the only guy who didn't know this. The icon did not show up. Checking my personalization settings, the switch to turn copilot on does not exist, in my settings.
Search for the reason, it turns out that you need a "Microsoft 365" (used to be Office 365) subscription, roughly $100 per year, to have the privilege. Seems like a really easy way to not allow my Windows 11 to become an agentic OS? It's also a way to disable Copilot in Windows 11, for those who do have Office 365 but want nothing to do with Copilot. Go to taskbar settings and switch it off.
Copilot still works fine on Edge, though, where it seems like a pretty good addition to the Bing search engine. Much as AI search is in the Google search engine.
1. Need Microsoft account.
Yes, but this is no big deal. All you have to do is get a free hotmail or outlook email account. Similarly, I had to get a free gmail account, to be able to transfer the content of my old Android phone to a new one, some years ago.
2. Where is my copilot icon? I thought it was supposed to show up on my taskbar.
Maybe I'm the only guy who didn't know this. The icon did not show up. Checking my personalization settings, the switch to turn copilot on does not exist, in my settings.
Search for the reason, it turns out that you need a "Microsoft 365" (used to be Office 365) subscription, roughly $100 per year, to have the privilege. Seems like a really easy way to not allow my Windows 11 to become an agentic OS? It's also a way to disable Copilot in Windows 11, for those who do have Office 365 but want nothing to do with Copilot. Go to taskbar settings and switch it off.
Copilot still works fine on Edge, though, where it seems like a pretty good addition to the Bing search engine. Much as AI search is in the Google search engine.