Forum Discussion
How to turn off or disable copilot in windows 11 permanently?
I have the same issue as I don't use Copilot app. I managed to remove the app after hours of researching.
https://www.geekhowto.com/remove-copilot-app-on-windows
I have the same issue as I don't use Copilot app. I managed to remove the app after hours of researching.
https://www.geekhowto.com/remove-copilot-app-on-windows
This seems suspicious, at the very least it's a page from a company that sells a software solution to something we can fix with the built in app removal procedures in windows as seen in other replies. This has fewer likes and should not be marked as the answer. The correct answer is to use the settings / apps uninstall procedure, IMHO.
I agree! Seems very risky to download and run a windows-hacking app that promises to remove a component of Windows which, with each update, becomes more and more baked-in to its design! Even if this (apparently AI-powered!) CleanMate does manage to remove Copilot without destroying the functionality of my Windows laptop, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the next quarterly Windows update rendered my laptop unusable.
A reviewer for the Australian PC Mag put it this way in an article last revised January 2026:
"Copilot is one of Microsoft's big bets for the future of the company, so it's not going to encourage you to get rid of it. However, there is a new way to say farewell to the AI, but only if you’re using a managed device and you have your admin's cooperation."Ever since the tech giant started automatically installing Copilot across Windows 10 and 11 PCs in 2023, Microsoft has allowed users to disable Copilot temporarily. But it’s been impossible to uninstall it completely."
Leo Notenbaum put it this way in a YouTube video on his Ask Leo! channel (298K subscribers) entitled "How do I get rid of Copilot everywhere?":
"Unfortunately, while it's branded as a single thing, there are as many places to disable or hide Copilot as there are places it shows up."
I'd put it this way: a chatbot engine such as Copilot or Apple Intelligence really does have many use-cases in an operating system that's intended for use by folks who require click-and-play easy-to-use glitz in their user experience ("UX"). I don't absolutely require this, but I do still tolerate the annoyances of a heuristic-laden UX which will (unavoidably!) make some "mistakes", and suck system resources at times when I would prefer my laptop's somewhat scarce resources to be narrowly focussed on what I consider to be the job at hand. I *try* to draw the line at targeted advertisements disrupting my UX -- because by design targeted ads will suck more of my somewhat scarce computational resources than the untargeted ones (which I accept as my "eyeball" and "attention" payments for internet services I receive without paying money for them). And I do my best not to become a grumpy old man, now that my computer UX has morphed almost out of all recognition from the time I sent my first email message (in 1972, to a friend in an intro-computing course at Stanford U ;-).