?

In the Enterprise editions of Windows, you can already uninstall it. Maybe not via group policy, but you can just find it in the Apps > Installed Apps list and right click to uninstall it. On the various home user editions of Windows, this is probably not the case. (I have zero systems running those, so I can’t check.)

The Enterprise LTSC IoT version of Windows 10 doesn’t even come with Copilot, nor have any updates for it thus far installed it on any of the systems I administer, either. Apparently only 11 does.

What’s new here is apparently being able to trigger this via group policy, but for anyone in the here and now you can already disable Copilot via group policy as well, even on your local system, even on Windows 11.

Fortunately (?) my PSU let the smoke out about three years after I bought the initial one for that build which had IIRC a pair of 7950GTs in it from my previous machine, in SLI. So I had the opportunity to throw a modern-ish Corsair 850w power supply in it which has all the modular plugs I need. That box has had a succession of random graphics cards in it ranging from that old pair of 7950GTs, then a GTX680, then finally my current GTX1080Ti. Honestly, the 1080 is still plenty enough for most games in 1080p (possibly serendipitously) as long as you don’t feel the pathological need for raytracing or frame generation.

You can sidestep the NVMe issue as long as you don’t care about 100% speed by slapping a PCIe to NVMe adapter board in one of your handy unused x16 slots now that you’re no longer using SLI (if that reminds you of anyone you know). I’m not certain booting off of that is viable and I haven’t bothered to try to figure it out, so the boot drive in that machine is a SATA SSD currently.

On the bright side, that board has ten SATA ports so turning into a drive farm is a trivial prospect if you’re into that kind of thing.

It says in the article.

The reason given is rising raw materials costs, i.e. metals, and the price increases they’re talking about are on the order of around 10% which is obviously a slap in the face along with everything else that’s going on in the hardware world, but by the same token pretty minimal compared to said selfsame everything else.

I think I paid $40 for my CPU cooler. So, if I ever need to buy a another one for some reason and now it’s $44, well, I guess I’ll live.

Hell, I have a Sandy Bridge based machine I built in 2012. It’s getting there, 14 years old now, and with its 1080ti in there it can still play most games just fine. It’s not my primary rig anymore but it’s still trucking the same as it ever was.

Mainstream PC performance really hit its plateau by, when, like 2018? I imagine somebody with a machine that’s only 8 years old will probably do just fine unless some critical and irreplaceable component in it explodes.

Yes.

But this is also because your system administrators are incompetent.

There are myriad other ways to accomplish the same thing, but this is easily rolled out via Group Policy.

These also have an entire computer running Tizen behind the screen in the door, which generates waste heat and dumps it… into your refrigerator. Genius!

Don’t worry, in the realm of major appliances the majority of what these bozos are calling “AI” actually isn’t. They’re just using it as a buzzword because they think it’s popular.

LG, selling a washing machine two years ago: “It has weight sensors to determine the load size.”

LG, selling the same damn washing machine today: “With exclusive LG® AI DD™ Technology!!!”

(I am not making this up.)

Turn something this into a moderately off road capable adventure bike and I’m sold. The BMW and KTM guys will absolutely pay $20,000 for it, albeit maybe not $37,000.

My KLR has about 200 miles of range per fill, if you’re even the slightest bit careful with it, which is necessary for excursions out into the bush where there are neither gas stations nor charging points.

winget install -e --id Mozilla.Firefox

On my site I have long since routed requests from Amazon associated IP blocks directly to the wood chipper, so it’s nice to see that I was vindicated in doing so. Their request patterns did indeed look pretty scrapey and I was wondering why.

Step five:

https://www.sordum.org/downloads/?st-edge-block

She’s actually named Sandie, but all of our cats have secondary names and we also call her Meow-Meow because she likes to double meow whenever she wants something.

I never used the one on the CD case, I just used all ones. Or 123451234512345, etc. for Windows 98.

Nobody anymore, but even as of a few short years ago the Windows fanboys would crusade and do battle specifically against the Mac fanboys, for some reason.

I’m not exactly a fan of Apple, but I’m not going to go around automatically championing Microsoft because of it…

Mine too:

FYI, you don’t have to use any third party tools and I didn’t, either. Step 1 is to run the Enterprise LTSC IoT version of Windows (either 10 or 11). The consumer versions of Windows are extra bullshit, as we all know by now.

Remove the Windows Store via Powershell (you probably have to run as an administrator):

Get-AppxPackage -allusers *WindowsStore* | Remove-Appxpackage

That removes the store suggestions. It also removes the store entirely, as well as the ability to install store apps. Obviously don’t do this if you are one of the 0.1% of users who actually use the Windows Store for some twisted reason.

Then in gpedit.msc / Group Policy Editor:

Local Computer Policy \ Computer Configuration \ Administrative Templates \ Windows Components \ Search

• Allow Cloud Search → Disabled
• Allow Cortana → Disalbed
• Allow Search Highlights → Disabled
• Do Not Allow Web Search → Enabled (gets rid of the internet search)
• Don’t search the web or display web results in search → Enabled (probably overridden by the above, I set it anyway)

** Local Computer Policy \ User Configuration \ Administrative Templates \ Start Menu And Taskbar

• Remove Personalized Website Recommendations From The Start Menu → Enabled
• Do Not Search Internet → Enabled

There are settings for other nags and irritations in here that you may also want to configure to your tastes as well.

Also:

Local Computer Policy \ User Configuration \ Administrative Templates \ Windows Components \ Windows Copilot

• Turn off Windows Copilot → Enabled

Important note: This doesn’t suddenly mean that Chick-Fil-A and the people who own it are suddenly good guys now.

It’ll work.

I just installed plain old boring Debian on three (3) random decommissioned office PCs the other day and every single piece of hardware in them worked out of the box including the Wi-Fi cards.

We already have local governments, too. What a reductive take.

More like the HOAs want to act like a government. But we already have local governments. We don’t need two of them.

You can’t run it on a Mediatek or a Rokchip or whatever?