As someone who enjoys tinkering with computer hardware, for various reasons I’ve found myself bouncing between Windows 11 and Linux.
Windows has the 3rd-party software support and a slightly more resilient driver arrangement, particularly with Nvidia GPUs. BUT…the ads, the Bing content in search results and the insistence on shoving CoPilot down everyone’s throats inevitably pushes me away.
For those times where I find my way back to Windows again, despite my best efforts to leave it in the rear-view forever, I want to bookmark these two tweaks for future reference.
The Bing Crap
There’s a good guide here for editing the registry to remove the Bing crap from search results.
Ultimately it involves navigating to:
Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer
Then adding a new 32Bit DWORD called DisableSearchBoxSuggestions then changing the value data to 1.
Make CoPilot f*** off
This can be done by creating a group policy. Open the Group Policy Editor and navigate to:
User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Windows Copilot
You can then switch the value ‘Turn off Windows CoPilot’ to Yes.
Hopefully Microsoft will continue to allow users to nerf some of their most egregious over-reaches, but if they somehow patch them out, that’s it. There’s no going back.