this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2026

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261

Windows 11 Copilot now tells you what’s slowing down your PC, while using 1GB RAM itself (www.windowslatest.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by VetOfTheSeas@discuss.online to c/technology@lemmy.zip

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[–] Brujones@lemmy.world 29 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Fun story from my win11 work machine. I've de-copiloted it to the best of my ability. Even so, 'ai.exe' was always running, consuming more RAM than I was comfortable with, and if I killed it, it would respawn.

I found i can delete the folder it resides in with no ill effect. But a few times a week, a process would recreate it.

System owned the parent folder but for some reason I was unable to revoke its write permissions. So instead, I created a junction so that anything written to the ai folder would instead write to a folder that I had sole ownership of.

This worked, except it ended up causing kernel failures and bootloader issues. Big yikes.

[–] OwOarchist@pawb.social 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Why not just write a script that re-deletes it every 5 minutes?

[–] Brujones@lemmy.world 10 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

I haven't figured out how do make a script that can delete a directory that needs admin rights. Instead, I created a script that pings the directory once per minute and tosses up a notification if it exists. Then I just go and delete it. It's good enough for me, since it only happens 2x-3x per week.

[–] fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Use task scheduler and click the run as administrator option. Also make sure you have the option set to run hidden, or run whether logged in or not.

[–] Brujones@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago

Thank you! I will give this a try.

[–] OwOarchist@pawb.social 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I haven’t figured out how do make a script that can delete a directory that needs admin rights.

Yeah ... me neither, I guess. I know how to do that on Linux easily enough (doesn't even need a proper script, just a root cron job), but not sure how on Windows.

[–] InFerNo@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 weeks ago

Create an empty file named ai.exe and mark it read only

[–] M137@lemmy.today 1 points 2 weeks ago

This is what shows they're scared of people not using it as much as they need. They literally make your system crash if you try to fully disable it.
They've invested too much to let it be a choice, no matter how hard it would be to make that choice.

[–] terabyterex@lemmy.world 21 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

everything else aside. please stop with this misunderstanding of ram. unused ram is wasted ram. the OS will give what is available. its good at managing who needs what. the problem ariaes is when an app isnt letting go of ram and taking more. so unless you have an app that needs ram and ia t getting it, its no an issue.

all that aside... i do t think a gig of ram for an ai to analyze your entire pc and running processes is absurd.

[–] Rhaedas@fedia.io 20 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah, the RAM isn't the problem if you have it, it's the CPU/GPU cycles to do what could be done with simpler tools.

[–] OwOarchist@pawb.social 13 points 2 weeks ago

unused ram is wasted ram. the OS will give what is available

But RAM used by this ai bullshit will not be listed as 'available' to the OS and cannot be used for other things.

[–] Kubiac@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Copilot can't analyze your PC or the data on it. It's just a fancy web page, that hogs too much resources.

[–] albbi@piefed.ca 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The Copilot app for Windows also supports some additional features not available elsewhere, including:

Windows shortcut key
Wake word ("Hey Copilot")
Copilot Vision
File search
Take a screenshot
View web content
Windows Settings support

Source

[–] Ghoelian@piefed.social 1 points 2 weeks ago

wow, very fancy

[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Yep, plus, who is running Windows on a machine where 1GB of RAM is precious?

My work laptop has 16GB. It runs the full suite of Microsoft bloat (CoPilot, Teams, Edge, OneDrive) plus various antivirus and work security/monitoring tools constantly. I usually also have Outlook open, ~5 active tabs in Edge (with up to 20 inactive), an RDP session going, Excel, VSCode (often with long running scripts going), OneNote, Notepad++, and either YouTube for music or a teams meeting with video.

I've never had to close anything for the sake of performance except when I was installing a big program, doing a deep search through tens of thousands of files using very inefficient PowerShell code, while having all the rest open.

I'm not saying CoPilot using a gig of RAM at rest is OK, I'm just saying it's not the huge performance impact being implied.

[–] fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

On a machine with only 8 gigs of ram that 1 gig is very useful. 16gb+ not so much, but 8 gigs gives you about 4 gigs of useable ram before windows starts offloading stuff.

[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 weeks ago

But that's kind of my point. 8GB was a good amount of RAM for heavy use with Windows a decade ago. It's unfortunate with the current costs of RAM, but 16GB is kind of the floor for modern computing with Windows.

I know the struggle. Around a decade ago I took an Android programming course. I was using a laptop on Windows 7 with only 8GB of RAM. It was fine for most of my other courses and for the light gaming I did on it, as long as I didn't have much else open. But Android development uses Android Studio. A Java IDE built in Java as IntelliJ, with a whole bunch of awesome but RAM guzzling features. Then Google strapped all their additional Android shit on top. Then to test the app you made, you were supposed to run an Android emulator that used at least 4GB of RAM.

I ended up having to borrow someone's old Android phone for testing, and I had to use another program to shut off all other programs and Windows Services while I worked. And saved up, and upgraded to 16GB of RAM, because it's what I needed for how I was using my machine.

It sucks. Developers, especially those making shit built into an OS, need to be far more aware of the resources their programs use and optimize better.

But at the end of the day our options are limited and we have to accept the changing times.

Or work around them. There are plenty of flavors of Linux if you need something lighter, or options to strip down Windows like tiny11 or Windows Ameliorated for 10.

[–] hal_5700X@sh.itjust.works 20 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

How to disable Copilot

For Pro, Enterprise, or Education users

Press Windows + R, type gpedit.msc, and press Enter. Navigate to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Copilot. Double-click "Turn off Windows Copilot," select "Enabled," then click Apply and OK. Restart your computer for the changes to take effect.

For Home users

Home users without access to the Group Policy Editor can disable Copilot via the Windows Registry. Press Windows + R, type regedit, and press Enter. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows. Create a new key named WindowsCopilot if it does not exist. Inside this key, create a new DWORD (32-bit) value named TurnOffWindowsCopilot and set its value to 1. Restart your computer to apply the change.

[–] j5y7@sh.itjust.works 12 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I disabled it with a Linux install.

[–] trashgirlfriend@lemmy.world -4 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

I disabled your mom with my install last night.

Like, seriously, you should check if she's okay.

[–] IEatDaFeesh@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I'll vouche for trashgirlfriend. I couldn't stand for 6 hours after what they did to me. 🫃

[–] the_riviera_kid@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Sounds fun, me next!

[–] trashgirlfriend@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Ladies, gentlemen please get in line, I can't install you all at once.

[–] j5y7@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

My mom is dying in hospice. Dick.

[–] trashgirlfriend@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

ol' install trick

[–] M137@lemmy.today -1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

What even is this? It reads like some Microsoft fanboy who took personal offence.
It's the kind of reply you get when people who are anti or pro something goes into a pro or anti something community just to be an asshole. Like meat eaters going into began forums and writing comments like this.
It's so weird, pathetic and cringe.

[–] trashgirlfriend@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

it's not that deep little guy

[–] Arnl@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 weeks ago

It works! It really saves 1GB ram!

[–] craftrabbit@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 weeks ago

Best possible comment

Also Windows kinda seems like it's a horribly confusing mess to me but maybe I just don't understand it

[–] Yosmonkol@piefed.social 1 points 2 weeks ago

You can also enable Group Policy Editor for Home Edition if you're willing to run a batch file from the internet.

[–] curbstickle@anarchist.nexus 16 points 2 weeks ago

Its generally pretty easy for me to know what's slowing down my work laptop.

Microsoft Teams is the hogzilla of resource hogs.

[–] SabinStargem@lemmy.today 1 points 2 weeks ago

I don't mind the idea of CoPilot. The problem is that CoPilot works for Microsoft, not for me.

It would be cool if the OS-AI could take a look at the Windows Event Viewer, find out everything that is misbehaving, and figure out if there are actionable fixes. Alas, it will take further AI and harness development before that sort of thing is practical. Probably several years from now?

0000

In any case, you can uninstall the AI modules of Windows, and turn them off. Of course, Microsoft will try to make an uninvited return. I use the paid version of ShutUp10 to have it automatically uninstall CoPilot and to reassert my rules whenever Microsoft tries to make an unwanted change.

I recommend ShutUp10 for a pretty simple reason: It has a simple GUI and explains the impact of the options you tweak. For people who aren't interested in becoming a master technician, that is very helpful for just getting on with one's day without sacrificing privacy.