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Microsoft 365 Copilot's commercial failure

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Re: Microsoft 365 Copilot's commercial failure

#151

Post by mrandish »

typpilol wrote: post #103
mrandish wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't work like it did before and will fail in some contexts. For example, if you try to use it with other modifier keys (as I do), you cannot because they are ALL already pressed and those presses cannot be masked. A real modifier key can be combined with any or all of the other modifiers. There is now no way to use that key in combination with the other modifiers.

It seems to work fine in vscode setting custom keybinds at least. I havent tried it anywhere else to be fair

Yes, remapping can work in narrower cases where right-CTRL is only used in combination with non-modifier keys.

CoPilot is really sending: Shift+Alt+Win+Ctrl+F23. When you remap the CoPilot key to right-Ctrl only the F23 is being remapped to right-Ctrl. Due to the way Windows works and because MSFT is now sending F23 DOWN and then F23 UP when the CoPilot key has only been pressed Down, the other modifiers remain pressed down when our remapped key is sent.

So, what's happening now when you press CoPilot after remapping it to Right-Ctrl... the keys actually being sent are: Shift+Alt+Win+Right-Ctrl (there are also some other keypresses in there that are masked). If your use case doesn't care that Shift, Alt and Win are also pressed with Right-Ctrl - then it'll seem fine - but it isn't. Your CoPilot key remapped to Right-Ctrl no longer works like it did before or like Left-Ctrl still works (no other modifiers). Unfortunately, a lot of shortcuts (including several common Windows desktop shortcuts) involve Ctrl in combination with other modifiers. Those shortcuts will still work with Left-Ctrl but not CoPilot remapped to Right-Ctrl. And there's no way to fix it with remapping (whether AutoHotKey, PowerToys, Registry Key, etc). It might be possible to fix it with a low-level service running below the level of Windows with full admin control which intercepts the generated keys before Windows ever sees them - but as far as I know, no one has succeeded in creating that.

Re: Microsoft 365 Copilot's commercial failure

#152

Post by mrandish »

wkat4242 wrote: post #140
DecoPerson wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Making deals with laptop manufacturers to put their trademark on keyboards is an unhealthy-for-society abuse of their market power and should be treated as such in every jurisdiction that they trade in. However, I've had no issue remapping it to the Context Menu key on the Chinese Lenovo Xiao Xin laptop I bought recently. It shows up in the PowerToys keyboard remapper tool as an F23 key. (Yes, there are more…

> However, I've had no issue remapping it to the Context Menu key on the Chinese Lenovo Xiao Xin laptop I bought recently. That's probably because you're not using it as a modifier so the OP's complaint of the automatic key-up event doesn't impact you (it's not necessary to have a keep-pressed state in this type of use).

Correct. Further down thread I wrote to another poster a summary of what's really happening now when you remap the CoPilot key - copied here...

The CoPilot key is really sending: Shift+Alt+Win+Ctrl+F23 which Windows now uses as the shortcut to run the CoPilot application. When you remap the CoPilot key to right-Ctrl only the F23 is being remapped to right-Ctrl. Due to the way Windows works and because MSFT is now sending F23 DOWN and then F23 UP when the CoPilot key has only been pressed Down but not yet released, those other modifiers remain pressed down when our remapped key is sent. I don't know if this was intentional on MSFT's part to break full remapping or if it's a bug. Either way, it's certainly non-standard and completely unnecessary. It would still work for calling the CoPilot app to wait for the CoPilot key to be released to send the F23 KEY UP event. That's the standard method and would allow full remapping of the key.

But instead, when you press CoPilot after remapping it to Right-Ctrl... the keys actually being sent are: Shift+Alt+Win+Right-Ctrl (there are also some other keypresses in there that are masked). If your use case doesn't care that Shift, Alt and Win are also pressed with Right-Ctrl then it'll seem fine - but it isn't. Your CoPilot key remapped to Right-Ctrl no longer works like it did before or like Left-Ctrl still works (sending no other modifiers). Unfortunately, a lot of shortcuts (including several common Windows desktop shortcuts) involve Ctrl in combination with other modifiers. Those shortcuts still work with Left-Ctrl but not CoPilot remapped to Right-Ctrl. And there's no way to fix it with remapping (whether AutoHotKey, PowerToys, Registry Key, etc). It might be possible to fix it with a service running below the level of Windows with full admin control which intercepts the generated keys before Windows ever sees them - but as far as I know, no one has succeeded in creating that.

Re: Microsoft 365 Copilot's commercial failure

#154

Post by 1718627440 »

ankurdhama wrote: post #77
flykespice wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That little copilot icon is sitting there in the task tray, clickable and usable. I'm using Win 11 and I didn't even notice Copilot on my task bar until you mentioned it... I think that is a wakeup call for me to finally flash my pc to linux

What's worse then copilot on task bar is the copilot key on keyboard. This key doesn't even have its own scan code, instead it send something like Win+Shift+F23.

Sounds not to bad for me, or have you bound anything to Super-Shift-F23?

Re: Microsoft 365 Copilot's commercial failure

#155

Post by 1718627440 »

mrandish wrote: post #152
wkat4242 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, I've had no issue remapping it to the Context Menu key on the Chinese Lenovo Xiao Xin laptop I bought recently. That's probably because you're not using it as a modifier so the OP's complaint of the automatic key-up event doesn't impact you (it's not necessary to have a keep-pressed state in this type of use).

Correct. Further down thread I wrote to another poster a summary of what's really happening now when you remap the CoPilot key - copied here... The CoPilot key is really sending: Shift+Alt+Win+Ctrl+F23 which Windows now uses as the shortcut to run the CoPilot application. When you remap the CoPilot key to right-Ctrl only the F23 is being remapped to right-Ctrl. Due to the way Windows works and because MSFT is now sen…

> Shift+Alt+Win+Ctrl

What??? Who has introduced that, is there a reason, why they are using all the modifiers?

Re: Microsoft 365 Copilot's commercial failure

#157

Post by detaro »

wkat4242 wrote: post #146
a_bonobo wrote: post #8

I still think there's a potential niche for 365 Copilot in its boringness. At work (not a tech company), there's an ongoing, slow, 365 rollout. The people who participate in the rollout are not technical in any way, but they all love it because they're not regular ChatGPT/Claude users, either. In a way, the restricted feature-set of Copilot compared to ChatGPT helps them, they're overwhelmed enough by Copilot. IT lov…

> IT loves 365 because it's so risk-averse. No big jumps, no surprises, Umm no, it's the opposite. It's super high-risk right now for us. Microsoft is constantly shifting stuff around leading us to have to constantly change our processes, documentation etc. Often with zero heads-up and often defaults to on. Some incidents: - They suddenly started a "free promotion" with Sharepoint agents. We don't want to offer that…

Plenty places seem to treat Microsoft et al as a "force of nature". Employee makes a mistake: terrible. Small vendor breaks something, whoever advocated for them is in hot water. Microsoft fucks something up, same category as if HQ gets leveled by an earthquake: sad, but nobody could've prevented it.

Re: Microsoft 365 Copilot's commercial failure

#158

Post by typpilol »

mrandish wrote: post #151
typpilol wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to work fine in vscode setting custom keybinds at least. I havent tried it anywhere else to be fair

Yes, remapping can work in narrower cases where right-CTRL is only used in combination with non-modifier keys. CoPilot is really sending: Shift+Alt+Win+Ctrl+F23. When you remap the CoPilot key to right-Ctrl only the F23 is being remapped to right-Ctrl. Due to the way Windows works and because MSFT is now sending F23 DOWN and then F23 UP when the CoPilot key has only been pressed Down , the other modifiers remain pres…

That's so strange. Microsoft really makes me scratch my head sometimes.

I know power toys has that setting for low level hook but I think it's only for the windows key

Re: Microsoft 365 Copilot's commercial failure

#159

Post by seec »

wkat4242 wrote: post #127
teruakohatu wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just added GPT 5 to Copilot so it’s much better than it used to be Only marginally in general office use. Maybe is has better coding capabilities, but there is no way its the same sized model used on ChatGPT or via. OpenAI API.

This is the impression I get too and I hear it a lot from our users too. Some have provided clear examples of something prompted to their personal ChatGPT sub and the company copilot one, and yes, it is often much lower quality. As it is the same product under the hood, there must be some kind of squeezing going on behind the scenes. And understandably because they're just reselling a third party service and they wan…

I think you answer your own question: because it doesn't matter if they can sell it and still make a profit.

Microsoft has a lot of already existing clients and those clients (mostly) trust them. They don't need to do a lot of convincing or marketing/sales to get them to use just one more thing from them even if it is moderately useful. If they can manage to resell whatever the LLM makers have made and still generate a profit, that's all they really need. They can figure out later how to make their own version if that turns out to be profitable enough.

This is the same thing with the browser; there is not much money to be made from building/maintaining an engine in the end. But packaging an already existing one with their own UI and tools (and ads) that may make them money indirectly is a good enough approach.

The thing that impresses me the most about Microsoft is that they rarely come up with the best solution right away but they always manage to stick to the new stuff and work out over time the useful parts that will make money. It's quite ruthless but in the end it's good business and this is why they manage to stay relevant. Good old, "embrace, extend, extinguish" is quite effective indeed.

Re: Microsoft 365 Copilot's commercial failure

#160

Post by seec »

wkat4242 wrote: post #134
RachelF wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many other recent Microsoft products are below average. I'm thinking Teams, Outlook, Windows 11. Azure and Office are better. I guess they spend their money on sales and licensing and not on developing good products now?

Even office isn't that good. It's basically been static in features for 25 years (until copilot came around). It took them a decade to surpass the 65535-row problem in excel. Microsoft get really lazy when they have a virtual monopoly. We saw the same with Internet Explorer. They just left it to whither away until it was too late. And yeah Teams, I can't stand it. Outlook too, in particular the "new" one that doesn't…

> Microsoft get really lazy when they have a virtual monopoly.

That's not very specific to Microsoft really. You can say the same thing about Google, Apple or any other big corp that managed to capture a market where users don't really have real alternatives.

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