Author: Martin Brinkmann

When I was young, I studied German, History and English at Essen University in Germany. I worked in computer support for several years at the time to help other computer users when they ran into issues. Writing started out as a passion project, as I wanted to help more users and not just the ones that I handled in support. This lead to the founding of Ghacks Technology News in 2005. First, as a side-project, but shortly thereafter as a full-time project as the site's popularity exploded. I sold Ghacks to Softonic some years ago, but stayed on as Editor. You can still read my articles on the site. I do publish on Betanews as well. In recent years, I started to write and publish technology books, including my latest book "Windows 11 From Beginner to Advanced", which is available on Amazon. I'm also a freelance writer for the German publisher Gamestar. Chipp.in is my newest project. I want to use it to talk about my book projects, sell my books directly, and write about technology, as this is what interests me.

Grayjay: follow video creators on multiple platforms

Posted on January 22, 2024January 22, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

Grayjay is a new application for Google Android devices to follow video creators on multiple platforms.

Depending on how active you are when it comes to streaming media, you may know that many video creators publish content to different platforms. A basic example is a Twitch streamer who also publishes some footage on YouTube.

Keeping up with just a single creator may require following them on different platforms. Follow more and add more platforms and it can get complicated quickly.

Grayjay set out to fix this. It supports a good number of platforms already. Besides YouTube and Twitch, Grayjay supports PeerTube, Odysee, Kick, Patreon, Rumble, Nebula and SoundCloud. Support for Subscribestar is under development already and there is a good chance that more platforms are added in the future.

The app does not require an account. Since it supports the downloading of videos, it is not available on Google Play. You may download it for Android from the developer website.

One effect of using Grayjay is that you can watch videos without ads. While you can block ads on YouTube and other platforms, it is another benefit of using the app.

Using Grayjay

YouTube is the only source by default. You may change that with a click on Sources and the selection of one or multiple sources. All of these are shown in the main interface. The developer notes that adding more sources may impact loading times, as videos from different platforms need to be loaded.

Tap on any video to play it right then and there in Grayjay. This is useful already, especially since Grayjay supports a queue, custom playlists and watch later functionality. The option to download any video is also provided. The downloads menu lists options to change the quality of the video before downloading it.

The main feature of Grayjay is its follow option. You may subscribe (follow) on any video page or by selecting the channel name. Options to enable notifications and follow only streams or videos are provided.

You need to subscribe to sources individually. There is no option at the moment to select a creator and follow them on all platforms that they publish or stream on.

Still, this is one time process to follow creators on multiple platforms. You may create groups for subscriptions to improve organization. Options include creating groups for individual creators or themed groups based on interests.

The app supports imports and exports of data. This allows you to share subscriptions across multiple devices or migrate subscriptions to new devices.

Verdict

Grayjay appears to be free to use at the moment. The app is open source and you may access the source on Gitlab. There is a “buy” link under “more” in the app that is asking for a payment of €9.99 plus tax. Several developers work fulltime on the app according to the page. The developers hope that enough users find their app useful to pay for it and make it sustainable.

Grayjay works well already. It would benefit from additional features, including the ability to follow a creator on all platforms with just a tap. While that may be difficult to automate, it could maintain a database of developer accounts on various platforms and use crowdsourcing to maintain it.

All in all, it is an interesting app that shows a lot of promise.

Microsoft Edge for Android’s new Copilot Toolbar

Posted on January 21, 2024January 21, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

Microsoft has renamed its browser for Android recently to Microsoft Edge: AI Browser. The browser is getting an infusion of Copilot and AI features. One of the latest is the Copilot Toolbar.

Available in Microsoft Edge Canary only at the time of writing, it is designed to give users even quicker access to Copilot.

Copilot is the main term that Microsoft uses for AI in its products. There is Windows Copilot, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and a large number of other Copilots. There is even a standalone Microsoft Copilot app for Android.

The mobile Edge browser supports Copilot already. Since it is the “AI browser”, it ships with Copilot included. This base version works similarly to Copilot on the web, but there are a few differences.

A tap on the prominent Copilot button opens the interface. You may use it to get a summary of the active webpage or communicate with the AI using text or voice input.

The Copilot Toolbar in Microsoft Edge: AI Browser

The Copilot Toolbar shows up at the bottom of webpages. It is placed on top of the main Edge toolbar.

It features two options currently: summarize and “ask me about this page”. Both open the main Copilot interface on selection. The first summarizes the webpage, the second offers information about the content on the page.

The toolbar feels a bit out of place. A tap on the Copilot button opens the interface of the AI as well. There you may also tap on the summary option to get it.

The toolbar saves you a single click. It is not overly useful. Microsoft, on the other hand, gets more eyes on Copilot.

The Copilot Toolbar offers some options. Tap on the three-dots next to it to get them. You may disable the toolbar “once”, “on this site” or “globally” using the menu.

Enable the Copilot Toolbar in Edge

The new toolbar is only available in Microsoft Edge Canary for Android. You need to enable it, as it is provided as an experimental flag only at this time:

Make sure Microsoft Edge Canary is up to date.
Load edge://flags in the browser’s address bar.
Search for Copilot Toolbar.
Set the status of the feature to Enabled.
Restart Microsoft Edge.

The toolbar shows up automatically on webpages and when PDF documents are loaded.

Closing Words

Microsoft pushes AI into all of its products. Some of the integrations feel like tests, to see what works and what does not. Copilot Toolbar is one of these. It does not offer much in terms of functionality.

The summary function is supported already. Considering that it takes a few seconds or sometimes more to get the AI to generate the summary, it may sometimes be faster to read the article by yourself.

This may not be true for very long articles, but it is necessary to verify the information the AI provides anyway.

How to back up Windows user profiles

Posted on January 20, 2024January 20, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

Each Windows user has a user profile that holds customizations and personal files. Users may install software, download files or change the look and feel of Windows.

Backing up user profiles may not be something that most users are familiar with. There are full system backups after all, which include user profile data.

User backups may come in handy in some cases, however. Here are the two main cases:

To migrate a user profile from one Windows device or installation to another.
To back up a user profile for safekeeping.

Windows users who use a Microsoft account may have some of their customizations and files synced between devices. Not all data is synced on the other hand, including Win32 software installations or customizations of installed programs.

A backup of the user profile and the restoration of it on another device takes care of that.

Note that there are also specialized programs for copying settings. Appcopier is a free tool that does that. Note that Windows Backup backs up user data as well, but not much more.

Super Grate: back up Windows user profiles

Super Grate is a free open source tool for Windows to back up Windows user profiles and to restore the backups. Its main purpose is migrations from one device to another. It runs on Windows 7 to Windows 11 devices.

The program requires no installation. Just run the program after download to get started. Windows may throw a SmartScreen error, which you can skip. The application is safe to use. Note that Super Grate requires elevation.

The interface looks simple enough, but there is a roadblock for users who never worked with computer names and domains.

Backing up profiles

To back up a profile, it is necessary to enter the name, and optional domain, of the computer. Open Settings > System to get the name of the computer. It is listed at the top of the page.

Type the name of the computer into the source computer field and activate the “list source” button. The program will return all user-created profiles but no standard profiles.

The name, creation date and last modification date of each profile is listed by the app.

Select one or multiple profiles and activate the start button to back up these profiles. It may take some time to back up profiles. Much of it depends on the size of the profile. There is a progress bar that reveals the progress of the entire process.

Restoring profiles

Restoring a Windows user profile works similar to the backup process. Type the computer name into the destination computer field and hit the “list store” button afterwards. To restore on the same computer, type the computer name again.

Super Grate should return all backed up profiles. Select the profile that you want to restore and then Start to restore the user profile on the device.

Tip: you may rename a Windows user profile by right-clicking on it and selecting the “set destination user name” option from the context menu.

Full migrations

To migrate a user profile from one computer to another, it is necessary to fill out both the source and destination computer fields. These need to be different and connected to the same network.

Consult the official documentation for additional guidance. It includes information about using Active Directory, deleting profiles and more.

Verdict

Creating a backup of a Windows user profile is a simple task with Super Grate. It is a useful when you want to migrate the profile from one device to another, or for back up purposes.

User profiles may become corrupt, for instance after a virus attack or accidental deletions of important files.

How to remove YouTube Shorts permanently

Posted on January 19, 2024January 19, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

YouTube Shorts is an integral part of YouTube and very similar to videos on TikTok. Not every YouTube user likes the short video format and some may find it outright annoying.

There are several ways to remove the entire Shorts section and all Shorts videos from YouTube. Removing in this regard refers to hiding YouTube Shorts on the website. There are also tweaks for removing YouTube Shorts on mobile devices.

You have several options to remove YouTube Shorts:

Add a set of filters to content blockers.
Use a third-party YouTube frontend instead of the official website or app.
Install another browser extension that hides Shorts.

Using filters to disable Shorts on YouTube

One of the better options at your disposal is to add a set of filters to a content blocker. Most Internet users do not use content blockers. Designed primarily to block ads and prevent tracking, many content blockers support options to hide elements on websites.

Did you know that you may bypass ads on YouTube without an adblocker?

Probably the best content blocker extension right now is uBlock Origin (Chromium-based or Firefox). You may add the filters to other content blockers, provided that they support filters. Please note that you should never run multiple content blockers at the same time, as this may lead to all sorts of issues.

The filter list that you need to add to uBlock Origin is maintained on the Let’s Block It website. Your best option is to visit the linked webpage and click on the copy option to copy the entire list to the Clipboard.

Note: the list is updated when YouTube makes changes to Shorts. This is the reason why it is not pasted here.

Open the Dashboard of uBlock Origin to add the filters. Note that the icon may be hidden under an extension icon in the browser’s toolbar.

Switch to My Filters in the Dashboard. Here you find all custom filters added to the content blocker.

Paste the entire content of the Clipboard into the field. The instructions remove Shorts entirely from YouTube.

Complete the process with a click on the “apply changes” button at the top.

Visit YouTube, you may need to reload the website if already open, to test the filters. All Shorts content should no longer be visible on YouTube thanks to the filters.

Third-party YouTube frontends

Another option is to use frontends for YouTube. Good news is that these are available on desktop and mobile devices.

Frontends offer most of YouTube’s experience. You may watch any video posted on YouTube. Additional features, such as the option to download YouTube videos, may also be supported.

Here is a list of recommendations:

Invidious — A frontend for YouTube that is used by websites and also apps. There is no Shorts section on Invidious. Since it is web-based, you may access it from any device with a web browser.
NewPipe — NewPipe is an application for Android. It is updated regularly and supports a wide range of features. Besides watching videos in up to 4K, it also supports live streams, shorts, downloads and more. One of its features is the option to hide content that you are not interested in. You may use hide Shorts in NewPipe.

Using browser extensions

If you prefer to use standalone extensions, you may check out the Hide YouTube Shorts extension. This extension is available for Google Chrome, Firefox and other Chromium-based browsers.

Note that most Chromium-based browsers support extensions only on desktop and not on mobile.

Download the extension for Chrome / Chromium or Firefox, and you are all set. It removes YouTube Shorts automatically once installed.

Closing Words

You either like or dislike Shorts, there seems to be no middle ground in regards to the feature. While there is no native option to disable Shorts on YouTube, there are plenty of options to remove the content from the video hosting site.

How to properly extract Zip files on Windows 11

Posted on January 18, 2024January 18, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

Zip archives are widely used on today’s Internet and on desktop computer systems. The Zip archive format is popular and used for distributing files, programs or saving space.

Archives contain one or more files. A Zip archive needs to be extracted, which is called unzipping.

Windows 11 supports the Zip archive format by default. It can extract contents of archives on the system. A third-party tool, like WinZip, WinRar or 7-Zip, is not required anymore for that purpose.

While it is a useful feature, it is far from perfect. Current versions of Windows 11 may be used to create and extract Zip archives. Windows 11 supports extracting other archive types, including Rar.

Last year, I ran benchmarks to find out how well the native functionality compared to that of popular archive apps. While it works, its performance is much slower than that of the tested third-party tools.

How to unzip files in Windows 11?

You may use the File Explorer context menu to extract archives. The option is available for all supported archive formats, including zip and rar.

Step 1: Open File Explorer on the system and navigate to the folder that contains the Zip archive. It may be in the Downloads folder if you have downloaded it from the Internet.

Step 2: Right-click on the Zip file and select the Extract all option from the menu that opens.

Step 3: A window opens. You may change the location the files will be extracted to. The default is a folder that matches the archive file’s name in the same location as the archive.

The option “show extracted files when complete” opens that folder. It is enabled by default, but can be unchecked.

Select Extract to unzip the archive to the selected folder. The process may take a while to complete.

How to view the contents of Zip archives

You may also open archives on Windows 11 before you extract them. This is useful if you want to see the files of the archive or access some of the files.

Double-click on the Zip archive in File Explorer to display its contents. File Explorer lists all folders and files that it contains.

You may browse them or use the built-in search feature to find specific files.

Your Options:

Double-click on any file to open it. This works only for files like .txt or .png that have a viewer on the system.
Right-click on a file or a selection to get options to copy, cut or delete it. Copy may be used to extract only the selected files. Cut is like copy, but it removes the file from the archive. Delete removes the file from the archive.
Select the “extract all” button in the toolbar to extract all files. This works similarly to extracting archives using the context menu.

Tip: You may edit the path in File Explorer to view any archive directly. Just add the archive’s name and file extension to it, e.g. C:\Users\Martin\Downloads\Test\iview466_plugins_x64.zip

Use of third-party tools to unzip files

Third-party archive apps offer several advantages over the native functionality of Windows 11. Apart from the already mentioned speed, which translates to minutes or hours saved when extracting and creating archives, third-party apps support advanced features.

Advantages include support for additional archive formats, better archive creation support and more.

Extracting archives works identical once the third-party app is installed on a Windows 11 device.

Right-click on the archive and select the extract option. If you have installed WinRAR, you select WinRAR > Extract Files.

Command line and PowerShell options

Most Windows users do not need to extract Zip archives from the command line or PowerShell. The process is not faster. In fact, most users may find it complicated, as it requires parameters.

Still, some may find the information useful.

Command Prompt

Open a Command Prompt window in the location of the archive file. If you are in File Explorer, replace the location path with CMD and press the Enter-key. This launches a Command Prompt window in the location.

Now run the command tar -xf ARCHIVENAME, e.g. tar -xf iview466_plugins_x64.zip.

This extracts the archive to the current directory.

PowerShell

You may open a PowerShell prompt from Start. Just open Start, type PowerShell and select the result.

Navigate to the folder of the Zip archive using the CD command.

Once there run the command Expand-Archive ARCHIVENAME to extract it, e.g. Expand-Archive iview466_plugins_x64.zip.

Closing Words

Third-party software offers several advantages over the built-in Zip extraction capabilities of Windows 11. In fact, the only advantage Windows 11’s native functionality has is that it is available immediately.

If you extract archives regularly or need advanced options, then you may want to use third-party tools for that.

Now You: do you use archive apps?

How to customize colors in Windows 11

Posted on January 17, 2024January 17, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

Microsoft’s Windows 11 operating system supports a wide range of color settings. Users may customize the color for window borders and title bars, the Start button and the taskbar.

Microsoft distinguishes between color modes, which refers to dark, light and custom modes, and individual color settings of each mode. This has not changed in the recently released Windows 11 version 23H2 update.

The very first choice that users of Windows 11 have to make is whether to enable light, dark or custom mode.

Here is how they differ:

Light Mode — designed to work well during daylight hours and in bright environments. This mode supports accent colors for window title bars and borders.
Dark Mode — designed for low-light environments, e.g., at night. Changes the colors of the Start Menu, Taskbar and Action Center, supports changing colors for windows borders and title bars.
Custom Mode — custom settings that may mix Dark and Light mode settings.

Changing Color Modes on Windows 11 devices

Follow these step to set the color mode on a Windows 11 system:

Open Start and select Settings. You may also use the keyboard shortcut Windows-I to open the Settings app this way.
Select Personalization in the sidebar menu and then Colors on the page that opens.
Activate the menu next to “choose your mode” and pick one of the available options. These are light, dark and custom.

Changing Light Mode colors

Select Light under “choose your mode” to enable light mode. If the mode was set to custom or dark, you should notice a return to lighter colors immediately.

Scroll down to Accent color. You may set it to manual or automatic. Set it to manual to pick one of the listed “recent colors” or “Windows colors”, or select “View colors” beneath the options to pick a color from the entire color range.

The selected color is set automatically. Note that the option to show the accent color on Start or the taskbar is disabled in light mode.

You may enable or disable “show accent color on title bars and windows borders” to show the selected color there.

If you set the color to automatic, Windows picks the color based on the wallpaper or open applications. Some users may find this confusing, as the color changes regularly when automatic is selected.

Changing Dark Mode colors

Dark mode supports a wider range of color options than light mode. It is unclear why Microsoft decided to restrict light mode in this regard.

After you have selected Dark as the preferred color mode on the system, you may also set the accent color to manual or automatic. The same color options are provided in this regard.

The accent color is shown on the title bars and windows borders by default. You may also enable “show accent color on Start and taskbar” to show it there as well.

Custom Color Mode

This mode gives you the option to set light or dark color modes for Windows and apps individually. You may set Windows to dark mode and apps to light mode, or vice versa.

How to configure less distracting color settings

Depending on how you configure colors on Windows, you may get a colorful system or one that is not as distracting. If you work on Windows 11, you may want to tone down colors on the system.

You may do so in all three color modes. The main recommendation is to disable all other features that Windows supports.

These are:

Transparency effects — these make Windows and surfaces translucent.
Show accent color on Start and taskbar — to show the taskbar and Start in a single color that uses the selected color mode as its base.
Show accent color on title bars and windows borders — to hide accent colors on windows.

It does not really matter which accent color you select, or if you set it to automatic or manual, if you disable all other settings on the page.

Now You: what is your preferred color mode?

Taking Microsoft’s Copilot app for Android for a test drive

Posted on January 16, 2024January 16, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

Microsoft unveiled the Copilot app for Android and iOS this week officially. While it released the app earlier, it is now officially available according to Microsoft.

How good is the app for Android and how does it compare to the web-based version? To find out, I decided to install Microsoft Copilot for Android on a Samsung handheld.

Microsoft describes its Copilot app in the following way:

Improve Your Productivity with Copilot–Your AI-Powered Chat Assistant
Copilot is a pioneering chat assistant from Microsoft powered by the latest OpenAI models, GPT-4 and DALL·E 3. These advanced AI technologies provide fast, complex, and precise responses, as well as the ability to create breathtaking visuals from simple text descriptions.
Chat and create all in one place—for free!

The app contains ads according to the description on Google Play. Ads may be displayed in responses of the AI, but not elsewhere, at least for now.

First thing you may notice is that you do not need to sign-in to use the app. This is similar to Copilot, formerly known as Bing Chat, which also works without account. Still, if you sign-in to a Microsoft account you get “longer conversations” and may ask more questions. The latter refers to the number of turns between you and the AI. Anonymous users get 5 turns, which is sufficient for many interactions.

The Copilot interface and capabilities

The application’s interface feels a bit overladen on launch. There is a slider to use GPT-4, some examples to get you started, a microphone icon, the refresh button to start anew, a photo and a keyboard icon. You also get a sign-in link and may vote or copy content the AI produces.

You may interact with the AI by typing, speaking or through images that you capture with the device’s camera or search on the Web. The functionality is similar to the one provided by the Copilot website.

Some features may work better on the web, others on mobile. Typing may work better with a dedicated keyboard, but voice and image inputs may work better on mobile in many cases.

Note that you still need to type or speak when you capture images.

A tap on the “sign-in” icon displays the Settings. This is not ideal, as it may mean that users who do not want to sign in from opening the preferences.

The settings list a few interesting options. You may change country/region, display language and speech language, as well as the theme there.

The privacy options display just a few options, including the ability to block ads. Note that this won’t disable the ads that Microsoft’s Copilot AI may display in its responses. It is unclear which ads the ad-blocker is blocking. There is no explanation on the page regarding that.

Using the Copilot App

It makes almost no difference if you use the Copilot app or Copilot on the web. Typing may be slower for many users, but that is to be expected. It would be interesting to know how many interact with the AI through text and how many use their voice.

Copilot requires an active Internet connection and it may take some time before you get results, especially if you enable GPT-4.

There is little that the current version of Copilot can do that other Internet services can’t. You can use it to translate images that you capture, get recommendations based on your location, or information about art in a museum. One of the advantages of the AI is that you get all of this from a single app.

One of the downsides is that it may hallucinate and produce information that are inaccurate or false. This is also true for other web services and AIs and it may be necessary to verify the output before making use of it.

It works reasonably well most of the time and may be useful because of that. Much depends on how it is used though.

Closing Words

Whether it is better than regular non-AI apps and services is for the individual user to decide. You could ask the AI to create a sightseeing trip that lasts 4 hours and should include all major sights in the vicinity. It may produce a good list faster than you’d be able to create using Google Maps or other services. Then again, it may also lead you to sights that do not exist, or do not exist anymore.

All in all, AI is a promising technology, but it is in its infancy. While technology has leaped forward significantly in the past year, it still has a long way to go before it reaches Star Trek Data or Star Wars 3C-PO levels.

Now you: do you use AI services or tools?

Manage which Google Services may exchange your data (EU-only)

Posted on January 13, 2024January 13, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

If you live in a European Union region, you will soon benefit from another privacy improvement. Google just announced a new control for users within the EU that allows them to manage links between Google services. Links refers to data that services may exchange between each other.

Google links many of its services by default, which gives it and its services access to user data across its services. This changes soon in the EU.

A search on Google Search may result in recommendations showing on YouTube or Google Play, and Google Ad services may use the information as well.

Google describes the functionality in the following way:

When linked, these services can share your data with each other and with all other Google services for certain purposes. All types of data described in Google’s Privacy Policy can be shared across linked Google services. This includes your activity data when you’re signed in, such as things you search for and the videos you watch and listen to.

Google says that the feature is a response to the Digital Markets Act of the EU. The new functionality is only available to users who live in the European Union.

Note: the functionality is rolling out currently. You may not see the “Linked Google Services” option yet, or only on some devices.

Note 2: The default seems to be that services are no longer linked. This means that they won’t share any data anymore from March 6, 2024 onward. It is still a good idea to verify this.

Manage your linked Google services

Google users may control the data sharing of the following Google services under the new system:

Search
YouTube
Ad services
Google Play
Chrome
Google Shopping
Google Maps

Here are step by step instructions to manage these.

First, for desktop users:

Open the Google Account website in your browser of choice.
Select Data & privacy on the page that opens.
Scroll down to “Linked Google Services” and select Manage linked services.
Select or deselect services. Any service that is selected will be linked when you select Next.
Review the selections made and select Confirm > Done > Got it.

For Android users:

Open the Settings on the Android device.
Select Google > Manage your Google Account > Data & privacy.
- If this is not available, open the Google app instead, tap on the account icon, select Google Account and then Data & privacy.
Under “Linked Google Services”, select Manage linked services.
Select or deselect services. Any service that is selected will be linked when you select Next.
Review the selections made and select Confirm > Done > Got it.

On iPhone and iPad:

Open the Gmail application on the device. If you don’t use Gmail, load http://myaccount.google.com/linked-services instead.
Select Menu > Settings > Your account > Manage your Google Account.
Under “Linked Google Services”, select Manage linked services.
Select or deselect services. Any service that is selected will be linked when you select Next.
Review the selections made and select Confirm > Done > Got it.

Microsoft forgets one important aspect when adding AI to everything

Posted on January 10, 2024January 10, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

Barely a week goes by without another AI announcement from Microsoft. It all began with the integration of ChatGPT into Bing Search. Called Bing Chat, it allows Bing users to communicate with a custom version of ChatGPT directly from the Bing website.

Exactly a year later, AI has found its way into a wide range of Microsoft products. From Windows Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot to integration in Microsoft Paint and Office. Soon, AI will also have its place in Notepad and many other company products.

Microsoft even started to rename products, Microsoft Edge for mobile to Microsoft Edge: AI Browser, to highlight its commitment and maybe benefit from the hype surrounding AI as well. Heck, there will even be a dedicated Copilot key on upcoming keyboards.

Microsoft seems hellbent to introduce AI into all of its products. Some products certainly benefit from an integration, especially if it is optional. It is up to each Bing user to use Bing Chat or ignore it.

The same can not be said for all products, especially if the integration can not be ignored easily or turned off. Microsoft is forgetting an important aspect in its rush to integrate AI into all of its products: does it benefit the user?

Lack of use cases

The progress that AI has made in the past year is astonishing. It is important that companies create products and tinker around with things. Find out what works and what does not.

When you look at Microsoft, you may notice repeating patterns. The integrations of an AI image creator in Paint or the integration of an AI rewrite tool in Notepad are two examples.

These tools exist already. Bing Chat can be used to create images. The integration in Paint makes it comfortable to access for users of the app, but it does not add anything beyond that to the tool.

Similarly, Cowriter in Notepad exists already in Microsoft Edge. Even worse, the Edge tool is more powerful. Cowriter is still in development, but it is unclear if Microsoft is going to add functionality to it before releasing it to the public.

These integrations benefit a small number of users only, at the very best. While they may introduce others to AI tools made by Microsoft, they annoy others at the same time.

Do we really need rewriters in all text processors or image generators in all image editors? The question exaggerates the issue, clearly, but there is a chance that Microsoft is pushing AI too much. If more and more users get annoyed, it could certainly backfire.

Windows Copilot: the perfect example

Windows Copilot, for instance, is just a version of Bing Chat at the moment. Microsoft announced the integration into Windows and Windows-specific tools and options,, but there are just a handful at the moment. Yes, this could be turned into a personal helper for all things Windows, but it is not at this point.

So, almost everyone gets Windows Copilot who runs a modern Windows system. It is difficult to turn off, one can only hide it using built-in options, and it does not work too well at the moment.

It requires an Internet connection and getting answers takes a couple of seconds usually. It is slow and not very helpful. Again, this may change in the future, and it hopefully does, but it feels pressed into Windows at the moment.

Closing Words

Microsoft’s enthusiasm when it comes to AI is understandable. It is a huge business already and will only grow in the future. The company is at the forefront, thanks to its partnership with Open AI.

Microsoft executives do have to make sure that they are not carried away though. It is one thing to launch great AI products that benefit users, another to plaster AI on everything.

Now You: what is your take on AI and AI products?

There has to be more to the Windows Copilot key

Posted on January 8, 2024January 8, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

Microsoft announced a dedicated Copilot key for Windows recently. Yusuf Mehdi himself announced the “year of AI” and the introduction of the Copilot key for Windows 11 PCs. Microsoft and several OEMs will ship upcoming devices with the key on the keyboard.

Information about the key is scarce at the moment. While Microsoft did publish a blog post on its Windows Experience blog about the key, it revealed little about its functionality.

Mehdi revealed on Twitter that the key would “enable one-click access to Copilot” and Microsoft’s rather lengthy post does not provide any additional information on the functionality it provides besides that.

Microsoft does compare it to the Windows-key, which it introduced almost 30 years ago. This key, also controversial at the time, introduced a number of new shortcuts on Windows.

Microsoft’s own Surface devices and devices by OEMs such as Dell will feature the new Copilot key.

The Copilot key: what we know

A short clip of the key that Mehdi posted reveals its location next to the right Alt key and the cursor keys on a keyboard for a mobile device. What Mehdi failed to mention is that it sits in the place of the right Ctrl-key on the keyboard.

Tom Warren posted a screenshot of a Dell keyboard with the key. It too replaced the Ctrl-key on the keyboard. It appears that Menu functionality is still available as well, albeit not directly when pressing the key.

The removal of the right Ctrl-key introduces a problem for users who use it. There does not seem to be a replacement option and it is unclear if users may map Ctrl again to the Copilot key to restore the current functionality.

Functionality-wise, all that Microsoft revealed was that you get access to Copilot when you activate the key.

Obviously, Copilot itself needs to rise to the occasion as well. It is severely lacking at the moment. It takes to long to process input and anything that you write is submitted over the Internet to a Microsoft server.

Is there more to it?

If the entire functionality of the key is to launch the Windows Copilot interface, then it is quite the redundant feature. The existing shortcut Windows-C opens the Copilot interface already. Users may also click on the Copilot icon to launch it.

What happens to the key when users deactivate Copilot? It is a dead key then? Will Windows 11 map it to Ctrl automatically? Or will it reactivate Copilot even?

It is certainly possible that the key adds just the launch option, which would demonstrate Microsoft’s dedication to AI. It may be great for the stock price and initial usage of Copilot, but it would be lacking functionality-wise.

If that is indeed all there is to the dedicated key, it is a missed opportunity. If Microsoft uses it as another key for shortcuts, it might interest more users.

From launching dedicated AI tools, such as image generation, to creating summaries of open documents or webpages with a simple shortcut.

If Microsoft wants to please everyone, it would even introduce a setting to remap the key to Ctrl.

Closing Words

The coming days and weeks will provide us with additional information about the key and its uses. While many OEM keyboards will include the key, it is uncertain if the majority of standalone keyboards will support it.

Now You: what is your take on the key?