If you are like me, you do not want to have anything to do with Microsoft’s latest addition to their main adware (a.k.a Windows) called Copilot. I won’t go into what Copilot is beyond saying it is the company’s latest attempt to force you to pay for another upsell service, and also another AI implementation. I have had my fill of artificial intelligence for the time being. Windows is a necessary evil for most of us, and I prefer to keep my Windows “experience” as clean and uncluttered as possible.
When you installed the latest Windows 11 update, you likely saw the Copilot button added to the Task Bar. It is easy enough to get rid of that button, by right-clicking on the Taskbar, choosing Taskbar settings, and under Taskbar items flipping the Copilot slider to off. But if you attempt a Search by clicking into the Taskbar’s Search area, you will still see an “Ask Copilot” button in the upper-right of the search window. See this article’s title image for what this looks like.
So how do you remove “Ask Copilot”?
If you go to Search settings (Windows Settings under Privacy & security > Search permissions) there is no option to remove this Copilot button.
In searching the Internet, I could not find anything specific to removing the Ask Copilot button, as every article and forum thread I read referenced only removing Copilot from the Taskbar itself. However, I did find several articles that mentioned changing a Registry value for Windows 10 to remove Copilot, but I found in Windows 11, this little trick actually does remove the Ask Copilot button! Here is how I did it…
Open the Registry Editor (note that editing your Windows registry is always a risk, and you do any editing of the registry at your own risk). Go to \HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer:
You may not see Explorer. I did not have that key/folder either. Simply create the key Explorer by right-clicking on the Windows key and choosing New > Key:
Once you have selected the Explorer key, right-click on the area to the right of the tree and select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value. Name the DWORD DisableSearchBoxSuggestions:
Double-click DisableSearchBoxSuggestions and set its value to 1. Click OK and close the Registry Editor.
You should either either sign out of Windows 11 and sign back in or, if you prefer, perform a full reboot of Windows. Each will suffice. When you return to your Windows desktop, click the Search section of your taskbar, and the Ask Copilot button should be gone!
I am guessing Microsoft re-purposed the DisableSearchBoxSuggestions registry DWORD specifically for their new Ask Copilot search button.
Finally, please note that this appears to work in the latest Windows 11 Pro build that I have, 22621.3155 Version 22H2. I do not know if this works in other Windows 11 variations or in Windows 10.
Thank you for taking the time to read my article.
