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Windows 11 adds AI agent that runs in background with access to personal folders

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Re: Windows 11 adds AI agent that runs in background with access to personal folders

#381

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

ChicagoDave wrote: post #313
luke727 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Office products are bastardized with copilot buttons everywhere. They put copilot in notepad. NOTEPAD.

Notepad++ is always a default install on any new Windows PC. Who on earth uses Notepad?

If it's a windows-based server, there's probably little need to do much text editing, so installing Notepad++ wouldn't be needed or desired. Then, you suddenly need to copy/paste/amend some text, so you end up opening Notepad. My use of it is typically if I'm connecting remotely to the Windows desktop and am not sure if the keymap is correct when typing in a password, so I type it into Notepad to make sure I'm putting in what I think I'm typing.

Re: Windows 11 adds AI agent that runs in background with access to personal folders

#382

Post by serf »

exe34 wrote: post #374
rightbyte wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's basically a fancy textbox. That was the lure. But the real Notepad has been decommissioned and there is some bloated one now.

Is notepad++ still a thing? I only use Windows as a dumb terminal now.

yeah, and it's still one of things in Windows that is a pleasure to use when you need it.

Re: Windows 11 adds AI agent that runs in background with access to personal folders

#383

Post by tetrisgm »

raincole wrote: post #337
tetrisgm wrote: post #226

I’d pay good money to disable that feature and keep my pc as is. Or I’ll have to swap to Steam OS

> This feature is completely optional and is never turned on by default. You only need to pay $0.

Not “off”, but “null”.

Re: Windows 11 adds AI agent that runs in background with access to personal folders

#384

Post by steve1977 »

senfiaj wrote: post #339
LooseMarmoset wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that Windows 2000 was the last decent version of Windows. Fast, non-bloated, ran DirectX and games better than Windows 98 ever did, and as stable an operating system as I'd ever run.

IMHO XP and 7 were the pinnacles.

With Windows Classic theme... ;)

Re: Windows 11 adds AI agent that runs in background with access to personal folders

#385

Post by npteljes »

keernan wrote: post #80

I find the apparent mistrust of MS interesting since the OS already has 100% access to every byte of information on a disk and in memory. Our use of any operating system involves an implicit assumption the operating system is not actively surveilling every piece of data saved/modified in storage or memory.

I agree with you, and I too find this "funny". Frankly, being in such an intimate relationship with something, and not trusting it, and constantly going against it just made me feel unhealthy. Like they are out to get me, but this "they" has complete access to my computer, and therefore my life, since I live a significant part of it on the computer. It's like being in an abusive relationship, or a toxic family dynamic.

It helped me to make up my mind. Can I accept Microsoft, or not? I arrived at the answer that I can't. So, I migrated my life away from them.

In a practical term, one cannot consistently go against the grain, and be successful in it. There will be a time where one slips up, clicks the wrong thing, accepts the terms because they are in a hurry, or an auto-update arrives that overrides the previous settings. So, I think it makes the most sense to either accept the things, or at least accept the risks, or move away.

Re: Windows 11 adds AI agent that runs in background with access to personal folders

#386

Post by devnullbrain »

vivzkestrel wrote: post #105

Imagine a new version of Windows being released called "Windows Optimal" In addition to Home, Professional and Pro you get to buy Optimal. The catch is that it is priced 4x the home version. You wonder why? Optimal is exactly what you think it is. A ground up 0 bloatware, 0 telemetry, 100% easily tweakable privacy and performance settings from a single screen with 0 AI features, 0 Edge and 0 games. Imagine getting yo…

This is a great idea. However, roughly 10 seconds after the first reports showing market penetration, a PM will suggest 'further monetisation'.

Re: Windows 11 adds AI agent that runs in background with access to personal folders

#387

Post by everdrive »

jscyc wrote: post #195
ChicagoDave wrote: post #127

Microsoft has gone full-blown evil corporation again. No customer validation on any of the AI cruft. No full OPT OUT. Office products are bastardized with copilot buttons everywhere. I've been a Windows user from day one and I now see a future without it. Satya had been a bright spot in Microsoft, but this blind lust for AI, especially in bed with Altman who is pure con artist, is unforgivable. Some of the investment…

I opened my outlook android app today to find they'd replaced the archive button in the bottom toolbar with a "Summary by Copilot" one. It wasn't enough that the only colourful button is the Copilot one on the right. Thankfully they still let you reorder the buttons, so I moved archive back and hid that unwanted summary in the overflow menu.

>Thankfully they still let you

They "let" you do fewer and fewer things with the computer you "own" every year.

Re: Windows 11 adds AI agent that runs in background with access to personal folders

#388

Post by serf »

BatteryMountain wrote: post #172
userbinator wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"again"? What they did in the past seems absolutely neighbourly compared to what they're doing now. Get a VM of Windows 9x/2k/XP to experience what "good Microsoft" was like.

The other day I installed Windows 7 on a VM for fun.. it was not fun at all. I got weird wave of nostalgic sadness, like being teleported back in time, I felt/remembered how things were back in ~2010, the culture, my university life, how things were with an ex gf, ALL of it. The OS is engrained in my mind and it was gorgeous seeing those aero effects and hearing the startup sounds again. It is so simple and easy. It…

nostalgia is pretty powerful.

I get the same feelings whenever I am near an interface that looks anything like NT4.0.

Re: Windows 11 adds AI agent that runs in background with access to personal folders

#389

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

hnlmorg wrote: post #218
userbinator wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"again"? What they did in the past seems absolutely neighbourly compared to what they're doing now. Get a VM of Windows 9x/2k/XP to experience what "good Microsoft" was like.

> "again"? What they did in the past seems absolutely neighbourly compared to what they're doing now. As someone who lived through Microsoft’s actions in the 90s, I really don’t agree with your sentiment there. There’s a reason many of us old greybeards still refuse to use anything MS even 30 years later.

The abomination that was IE6 - it poisoned the internet at the time with developers designing specifically for it and its random bullshit bugs. The number of admin tools (e.g. SAN interface) that specifically required IE6 to run ActiveX or some monstrosity.

Re: Windows 11 adds AI agent that runs in background with access to personal folders

#390

Post by Yizahi »

Springtime wrote: post #220
luke727 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Office products are bastardized with copilot buttons everywhere. They put copilot in notepad. NOTEPAD.

And this W11 version of Notepad takes longer to open than Sublime Text and about equal to Firefox. On NVMe. It used to be instant , which is something you really notice the difference with when it changes.

They made the damned system volume regulator open with a visible delay now. You can click on it and observe it at 0 level, and then after some seconds it jumps to the actual position. After they threw out Win10 taskbar and replaced it with this rejected tablet atrocity in Win11, everything got much slower on it.
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