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Remap or disable 'Copilot' chatbot key on new Windows keyboards

Anonymous
2024-06-13T18:03:19+00:00

Recently Microsoft has partnered with manufacturers to add new chatbot keys in place of the old commonly used menu/ right control key.

I've been getting more and more calls from customers of new laptops complaining about this chatbot key and wanting it turned off. This has lead to one ripping the key off, three returning their laptops, and two downloading possibly dangerous third party programs to remap this key.

It appears there is no settings in Windows to make this key usable for anything the customer actually wants it for. It's just begging to be accidentally tapped so the user can get advertisements delivered to them via a chatbot.

So how can we disable/remap this unwelcome key on Windows keyboards?

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Input and language

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    Anonymous
    2024-06-17T12:58:05+00:00

    Hello, Welcome to Microsoft Community.

    Thanks for your feedbackI think you're having trouble with the Copilot key on your keyboard.

    You can use the keyboard-manager feature in Microsoft PowerToys tool to remap or disable the Copilot chatbot key on your Windows keyboard. Here are the steps:

    1. Download and install the Microsoft PowerToys tool from the official Microsoft website.
    2. Open the PowerToys tool and select the "Keyboard Manager" tab.
    3. Click on the "Remap a key" button.
    4. Choose the Copilot chatbot key from the "Physical Key" dropdown menu.
    5. Select the key or function you want to remap the Copilot chatbot key to from the "Mapped To" dropdown menu.
    6. Click "OK" to save the changes.

    If you want to completely disable the Copilot chatbot key, you can remap it to the "Disabled" option.

    You can download the tool from the following link: https://dori-uw-1.kuma-moon.com/windows/powertoys/

    If you are indeed using a Surface product, you can purchase the Surface Pro Signature Keyboard separately to replace the Surface Pro Flex Keyboard.

    If my understanding is wrong, please point it out, so that I can assist you better.

    Lugoo Bei | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

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  1. Anonymous
    2024-10-22T01:42:12+00:00

    Dear SirBlain, I’ve got some new information.

    Microsoft has listened to everyone’s feedback and has now added the ability to customize the Copilot key in Win11 Canary Preview build 27729.

    This feature is currently under evaluation, and if everything goes well, this improvement should be rolled out in a future official version.

    Let’s look forward to a better Windows 11!

    8 people found this answer helpful.
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  2. Anonymous
    2024-10-28T22:31:24+00:00

    Lugoo,

    Will the customization allow linking the key to Copilot for Work? Right now it defaults to copilot.microsoft.com and there doesn't seem to be a way to change that behaviour to link to copilot.cloud.microsoft.

    Thanks, PB

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-10-29T14:33:30+00:00

    PowerToys worked great for me, although the process is somewhat different than described. Instead of "Remap a key", the solution was to "Remap a shortcut" both because there wasn't a copilot key option under the "Physical Key" dropdown menu and because the keyboard was actually sending the sequence "Win (left) + Shift (left) + F23" when pressing the copilot key. Changing the setting of the shortcut solved the issue.

    6 people found this answer helpful.
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  4. Anonymous
    2024-11-24T02:01:47+00:00

    From my experiments (on a ASUS ProArt P16), neither the PowerToys Keyboard Manager nor the new "Customize Copilot key on keyboard" implementations are attempting solving the root problem. Looking back in posts above, some people say PowerToys works perfectly on some laptops but not on others. Is somehow the laptop manufacturer implementations affecting the remap abilities?

    The problem I see is that both approaches are trying to remap the Copilot key to a specific key "action" whereas we want to remap to a "modifier" function that can later be used in conjunction with another key to form a chord.

    In PowerToys, if I map simply to Ctrl (with its secondary action box left blank), it does nothing useful. Lets say in Word pressing the Remapped_Copilot_as_Ctrl_<blank> + B does not do the Ctrl+B action (Bold Text) but simply enters "B". If In PowerToys, remap to Ctrl+B, then in Word simply pressing Copilot alone will do Bold Text.

    Similarly, in the new Windows 11 setting to Customize Copilot, can only remap to be a shortcut to open some app. IMHO, so meaningless as dozens of other methods (such as pinning the app to the taskbar or start menu) is just as convenient. Who needs to open one single app so often that need a dedicated key to do it more efficiently?

    PowerToys really needs to be updated so that a remap can act as a modifier rather than action. When first box set to Ctrl (or any other modifier function), the second box should have option to <act as pure modifier key> instead of requiring an action item.

    Maybe not possible because the original key is physically constructed as an action key (Win+Shift+F23) by certain laptop manufacturers.

    4 people found this answer helpful.
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