Microsoft Finally Allows You To Uninstall Copilot—but There Are Quite A Few Hoops

Microsoft Finally Allows You to Uninstall Copilot—but There Are Quite a Few Hoops

Last updated: 2026/01/10 at 4:06 PM

News Room Published 10 January 2026

If you’re using Windows 11 and you’re no fan of Microsoft Copilot, you may now finally be able to completely get rid of it—but only if you’re using a managed device and you have your administrator’s cooperation.

Ever since the tech giant started automatically installing Copilot across Windows 10 and 11 PCs in 2023, Microsoft has allowed users to disable Copilot temporarily. But it’s been impossible up until now to uninstall it completely.

Now, with the release of a Windows 11 Insider Preview build on Microsoft’s Developer and Beta Channels, announced via Windows Insider, IT administrators can uninstall the AI-powered Copilot digital assistant on managed devices for the first time. This policy is available on Enterprise, Pro, and EDU SKUs, and users can still reinstall Copilot if they choose to.

But the policy, called RemoveMicrosoftCopilotApp, still has quite a few caveats. The user must have both Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Copilot installed on the system, and the Microsoft Copilot app must not have been installed by the user.

Another requirement is that the Microsoft Copilot app hasn’t been launched in the past 28 days. As Tom’s Hardware notes, this is actually pretty tough to meet for average users, as Microsoft’s AI assistant has “auto-start on login” turned on by default. This means the user would have had to disable the app in Task Manager’s list of Startup App, and somehow avoid accidentally launching the app for the best part of a month.

If you’re in charge of a managed PC and you’d like to remove Copilot, head to the Group Policy Editor, followed by User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows AI > Remove Microsoft Copilot App.

Some Windows users have obviously been looking forward to this for a while. In March 2025, a rogue update actually removed Microsoft’s Copilot assistant from the OS for some users due to a software bug. Ironically, some users liked the unintended consequence, with one saying “finally a good feature” in a Reddit post.