It’s the sort of thing that spooks even the most seasoned sysadmins: You turn off a feature—really off, you promise yourself—but then one day, it’s back. No blue screen of death, no welcome party, just quietly squatting in your workspace, whispering machine-learning sweet nothings to your source code. Welcome to the not-so-distant reality experienced by many Visual Studio Code aficionados, where Microsoft Copilot’s AI is turning itself on even when you’re sure you left it behind the velvet rope.
Let’s start with a scenario that’s increasingly familiar: You’re a developer, juggling open-source and proprietary code, and—call you cautious, call you old-school—you're not exactly keen on sharing your private repos or those cryptographically vital YAML secrets with anything that was born in a Microsoft research lab. So you carefully gate Copilot, the code-whispering AI, confining its well-intentioned omniscience to specific windows in Visual Studio Code. Even your most privacy-indifferent colleagues quietly admire your dedication to data hygiene.
Then it happens. Without warning, Copilot activates in every single open window. Imagine your private, tightly guarded data—API keys, dev certificates, that embarrassing config file you still haven’t cleaned up—all on full display for Copilot’s machine learning maw. In the words of one understandably alarmed developer, known as rektbuildr: “Today, Copilot turned itself on in all open VSCode windows without my consent. Now you probably have copies of all key files, YAML secrets, certificates, etc. This is not normal.”
Not normal, indeed. While the rest of the world obsesses over AI’s ability to generate cats riding skateboards in the style of Flemish masters, developers are discovering Copilot’s penchant for boundary-crossing, self-enabling integration. Privacy? Consent? Pfft—minor details if you ask a rogue background process.
These complaints aren’t mere edge cases or the grumbling of luddite naysayers—they’re legitimate concerns voiced by experienced professionals. And so, the central issue quickly pivots from one of convenience to security. After all, it’s one thing if Copilot offers rote, autocomplete-like suggestions. It’s quite another if it’s scraping sensitive data, potentially behind your back.
Now, don’t get me wrong—I’m all for a future where my IDE reads my mind and writes the unit tests I keep putting off. But only if I ask it. Only when I say it’s OK.
Meanwhile, experts have been picking apart Copilot’s start-up routine and have discovered that Microsoft has changed the mechanism for launching Copilot in Windows 11. The days of straightforward toggles and checkboxes are gone; now, you need to haul out PowerShell and dabble with AppLocker policies just to ensure Copilot stays where you want it—uninstalled, out of sight, and out of mind. If you thought registry hacking was something you’d left behind in the XP era, think again.
It’s here that IT professionals start pouring the coffee a little stronger and double-checking the patch notes. Automation is supposed to make life easier, but what’s the point if it adds extra steps (and potential loopholes) to the process of simply turning something off?
This latest kerfuffle draws uncomfortable parallels to the launch of Recall—a similarly controversial Windows 11 feature that gives the AI-powered vision system access to, well, everything happening on your computer. Microsoft calls it Copilot Vision, but critics might prefer Copilot Surveillance.
Why does this matter? Because so much of Windows’ install base is enterprise. These are the people with secrets to keep, regulatory requirements to meet, and—most importantly—bosses to answer to. If Copilot is misbehaving, then every CISO from Seattle to Singapore gets nervous.
Imagine the compliance implications. GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS—you name it. If sensitive data is exposed to an AI assistant whose operational state is ambiguous at best, the audit risks alone are enough to cause palpitations. And while a hobbyist coder’s lost secrets might only bring shame in their Discord DMs, a misplaced API key in a Fortune 500 DevOps pipeline is the kind of thing that makes headlines.
And, let’s be honest, it makes you wonder: What exactly is “off” in software-speak anymore? If toggles no longer function as expected, are we deluding ourselves by thinking we’re in control?
This is the eternal irony of modern IT: The very tools meant to save you time wind up costing you more of it. Visual Studio Code was supposed to be lightweight, agile, and developer-centric. Copilot was supposed to grease the wheels, not morph into yet another process that eats up both RAM and mental energy.
Instead, we’re writing clickbaity LinkedIn posts on “10 Steps to Actually Turn Off Copilot for Good,” starring step-by-step guides that look suspiciously like 1990s troubleshooting manuals. It’s as if someone at Microsoft confused “invisible background helper” with “persistent, mildly haunting presence.”
Users, quite understandably, are raising red flags. If Recall and Copilot Vision are anything like current Copilot, is it only a matter of time before your entire desktop becomes one big training data set? It’s the ultimate gotcha moment for those who worried about cloud-connected telemetry and data scraping. The line between helpful and intrusive is hair-thin, and these reports show how easily it gets blurred.
With new endpoints, new mechanisms for feature toggling, and increasingly powerful AI models, the old approaches to endpoint management aren’t cutting it. IT teams need to upskill fast—or risk seeing their domain names and secrets in the next machine-generated suggestion prompt.
System administrators need to:
And for everyone else? Don’t assume that because a setting says “off,” you’re in the clear. The modern Windows ecosystem is a never-ending tug-of-war between usability, innovation, and control. Occasionally, the rope snaps.
But feature creep is real. And as the margins narrow between “helpful” and “hazardous,” the biggest risk isn’t that AI will replace us—but that it will quietly undermine the environments we fought so hard to secure.
Transparency, robust controls, and responsive support aren’t just “nice-to-haves”—they’re must-haves. Until then, IT professionals everywhere get to perform the digital equivalent of checking under the bed for Copilot every night before logging off.
Somewhere deep within Microsoft HQ a product manager is likely muttering, “We wanted Copilot to be more engaged with your workflow, not married to your workspace.” Maybe next year’s Build will feature a new keynote: “How to Uninstall Clippy’s Annoying Grandchild—For Real This Time.”
Will Microsoft address these bugs decisively, restoring users’ trust? Will enterprises gain the fine-tuned controls they crave, or will the arms race to disable Copilot become a black market of PowerShell scripts and elusive .reg files traded between admins?
One thing’s clear: The future of Windows is AI-driven, with or without your explicit sign-off. Whether that’s a productivity dream or a security nightmare depends on how well you can wrestle your workspace into submission.
Until then, keep your secrets close, your PowerShell scripts closer, and remember—for every bug report borne of frustration, there are a thousand wisecracks from sysadmins just waiting to be unleashed on the next team call. Because in the age of Copilot, the only thing more persistent than the assistant itself is the IT crowd’s irrepressible wit.
Source: Fakti.bg Warning: Microsoft AI is automatically enabled even if disabled
Microsoft Copilot: The Assistant Who Just Can’t Take a Hint
Let’s start with a scenario that’s increasingly familiar: You’re a developer, juggling open-source and proprietary code, and—call you cautious, call you old-school—you're not exactly keen on sharing your private repos or those cryptographically vital YAML secrets with anything that was born in a Microsoft research lab. So you carefully gate Copilot, the code-whispering AI, confining its well-intentioned omniscience to specific windows in Visual Studio Code. Even your most privacy-indifferent colleagues quietly admire your dedication to data hygiene.Then it happens. Without warning, Copilot activates in every single open window. Imagine your private, tightly guarded data—API keys, dev certificates, that embarrassing config file you still haven’t cleaned up—all on full display for Copilot’s machine learning maw. In the words of one understandably alarmed developer, known as rektbuildr: “Today, Copilot turned itself on in all open VSCode windows without my consent. Now you probably have copies of all key files, YAML secrets, certificates, etc. This is not normal.”
Not normal, indeed. While the rest of the world obsesses over AI’s ability to generate cats riding skateboards in the style of Flemish masters, developers are discovering Copilot’s penchant for boundary-crossing, self-enabling integration. Privacy? Consent? Pfft—minor details if you ask a rogue background process.
When Disabling the AI Doesn’t, Well, Disable the AI
Let’s be clear: Turning off Copilot—really, truly off—shouldn’t feel like trying to disinfect your PC after a sketchy toolbar installation in 2003. But for at least one reported soul, not even the powerful Group Policy Object (GPO), that last bastion of admin control, was enough. Copilot simply ignored the kill switch, like a determined pop-up ad in dial-up days.These complaints aren’t mere edge cases or the grumbling of luddite naysayers—they’re legitimate concerns voiced by experienced professionals. And so, the central issue quickly pivots from one of convenience to security. After all, it’s one thing if Copilot offers rote, autocomplete-like suggestions. It’s quite another if it’s scraping sensitive data, potentially behind your back.
Now, don’t get me wrong—I’m all for a future where my IDE reads my mind and writes the unit tests I keep putting off. But only if I ask it. Only when I say it’s OK.
Microsoft’s Latest Moves: Lockdown, the Hard Way
Before you accuse Microsoft of masterminding the world’s most ambitious source code collection drive, it’s worth noting that they seem to (eventually) investigate such slip-ups—albeit with all the urgency of a sysadmin coaxed out of bed by a Sunday morning pager alert. While there’s no official comment from Redmond just yet, word is that they’re on the case.Meanwhile, experts have been picking apart Copilot’s start-up routine and have discovered that Microsoft has changed the mechanism for launching Copilot in Windows 11. The days of straightforward toggles and checkboxes are gone; now, you need to haul out PowerShell and dabble with AppLocker policies just to ensure Copilot stays where you want it—uninstalled, out of sight, and out of mind. If you thought registry hacking was something you’d left behind in the XP era, think again.
It’s here that IT professionals start pouring the coffee a little stronger and double-checking the patch notes. Automation is supposed to make life easier, but what’s the point if it adds extra steps (and potential loopholes) to the process of simply turning something off?
This latest kerfuffle draws uncomfortable parallels to the launch of Recall—a similarly controversial Windows 11 feature that gives the AI-powered vision system access to, well, everything happening on your computer. Microsoft calls it Copilot Vision, but critics might prefer Copilot Surveillance.
Security, Privacy, and the Death of “Off”
Let’s not mince words: If an AI feature continues operating after you disable it, that’s not a glitch—that’s a crisis of trust. And in the IT world, trust is about as fragile as a new Surface Laptop in the hands of a toddler.Why does this matter? Because so much of Windows’ install base is enterprise. These are the people with secrets to keep, regulatory requirements to meet, and—most importantly—bosses to answer to. If Copilot is misbehaving, then every CISO from Seattle to Singapore gets nervous.
Imagine the compliance implications. GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS—you name it. If sensitive data is exposed to an AI assistant whose operational state is ambiguous at best, the audit risks alone are enough to cause palpitations. And while a hobbyist coder’s lost secrets might only bring shame in their Discord DMs, a misplaced API key in a Fortune 500 DevOps pipeline is the kind of thing that makes headlines.
And, let’s be honest, it makes you wonder: What exactly is “off” in software-speak anymore? If toggles no longer function as expected, are we deluding ourselves by thinking we’re in control?
The Frustrating Reality (and Irony!) of Modern “Productivity” Tools
"Copilot will boost productivity!" they said. "It’ll make coding fun again!" they promised. But, instead, experienced developers now spend valuable billable hours learning how to banish Copilot with the digital equivalent of garlic, holy water, and an elaborate PowerShell incantation.This is the eternal irony of modern IT: The very tools meant to save you time wind up costing you more of it. Visual Studio Code was supposed to be lightweight, agile, and developer-centric. Copilot was supposed to grease the wheels, not morph into yet another process that eats up both RAM and mental energy.
Instead, we’re writing clickbaity LinkedIn posts on “10 Steps to Actually Turn Off Copilot for Good,” starring step-by-step guides that look suspiciously like 1990s troubleshooting manuals. It’s as if someone at Microsoft confused “invisible background helper” with “persistent, mildly haunting presence.”
The Recall Connection: Should You Worry? (Spoiler: Yes.)
This brings us to Recall and Copilot Vision, features whose names alone are enough to make privacy-conscious professionals clutch their encryption keys. Imagine a digital overseer that’s always watching, always learning, always ready to say, “Oh, I noticed you’re sharing that confidential spreadsheet—should I suggest a formula for your anticipated fines?”Users, quite understandably, are raising red flags. If Recall and Copilot Vision are anything like current Copilot, is it only a matter of time before your entire desktop becomes one big training data set? It’s the ultimate gotcha moment for those who worried about cloud-connected telemetry and data scraping. The line between helpful and intrusive is hair-thin, and these reports show how easily it gets blurred.
With new endpoints, new mechanisms for feature toggling, and increasingly powerful AI models, the old approaches to endpoint management aren’t cutting it. IT teams need to upskill fast—or risk seeing their domain names and secrets in the next machine-generated suggestion prompt.
Real-World Implications: IT Pros, Start Your Engines
So, what does this mean for the day-to-day work of IT professionals? It’s both painful and simple: Assume nothing, trust no default, and always verify.System administrators need to:
- Audit which features are actually active versus what policies claim to control
- Incorporate script-based disablement routines as standard, even for supposedly “manageable” features
- Train end-users on the risks, especially regarding non-public code and sensitive documents
- Monitor Redmond’s release notes like hawks—because you never know when a toggle becomes ceremonial, rather than functional
And for everyone else? Don’t assume that because a setting says “off,” you’re in the clear. The modern Windows ecosystem is a never-ending tug-of-war between usability, innovation, and control. Occasionally, the rope snaps.
Microsoft’s Balancing Act: Innovation Versus Trust
To be fair, Microsoft is under immense pressure—from shareholders, from competitors (did someone say OpenAI?), and from exponential user demand—to keep pushing out AI-heavy features at a rapid pace. The Copilot project, with its tantalizing promise of code suggestions, automatic documentation, and full-stack symbiosis, has won no shortage of accolades.But feature creep is real. And as the margins narrow between “helpful” and “hazardous,” the biggest risk isn’t that AI will replace us—but that it will quietly undermine the environments we fought so hard to secure.
Transparency, robust controls, and responsive support aren’t just “nice-to-haves”—they’re must-haves. Until then, IT professionals everywhere get to perform the digital equivalent of checking under the bed for Copilot every night before logging off.
Subtle Humor for a Brave New World
Is it too much to ask, in the midst of all this technological progress, to have a button that actually works as advertised? Copilot’s penchant for persistence may be impressive from an engineering standpoint, but from a user’s perspective, it’s like crossing off a to-do list item, only to have it hop right back onto the board with a cheeky wink.Somewhere deep within Microsoft HQ a product manager is likely muttering, “We wanted Copilot to be more engaged with your workflow, not married to your workspace.” Maybe next year’s Build will feature a new keynote: “How to Uninstall Clippy’s Annoying Grandchild—For Real This Time.”
The Way Forward: Advocacy, Vigilance, and a Little Healthy Skepticism
Ultimately, this Copilot saga is just another chapter in the ongoing story of privacy, control, and user agency. As AI-powered features become more ubiquitous—and more powerful—the stakes for proper implementation grow alongside them.Will Microsoft address these bugs decisively, restoring users’ trust? Will enterprises gain the fine-tuned controls they crave, or will the arms race to disable Copilot become a black market of PowerShell scripts and elusive .reg files traded between admins?
One thing’s clear: The future of Windows is AI-driven, with or without your explicit sign-off. Whether that’s a productivity dream or a security nightmare depends on how well you can wrestle your workspace into submission.
Until then, keep your secrets close, your PowerShell scripts closer, and remember—for every bug report borne of frustration, there are a thousand wisecracks from sysadmins just waiting to be unleashed on the next team call. Because in the age of Copilot, the only thing more persistent than the assistant itself is the IT crowd’s irrepressible wit.
Source: Fakti.bg Warning: Microsoft AI is automatically enabled even if disabled
