How to completely remove Copilot from Edge?

Unfortunately that works for pro versions but the home version of Windows doesn't have the gpedit.msc available. So you have to go online and find a god-awful batch file and run that hoping the creator doesn't screw up your machine. :-( I think some of the frustration on this question from posters is that they likely have the home version and with CoPilot now part and parcel of Windows 11 - we are sort of screwed on turning it off. I find it very intrusive and seldom useful - and OFTEN inaccurate. It's the fact that we are given NO CHOICE by Microsoft (and I'm a fan of the big M) that is frustrating. Thank you for responding though. Your instructions should work for those who have or want to take the time to load gpedit.msc.

Hi Jessie,

Did you perform a restart after running the regedit change? It's a bit old school but a registry change can sometimes take a couple of reboots to apply it cleanly. Why? Well you change the registry setting and then reboot it to enforce the new value. The second reboot applies the enforced new value.

Let's just check a few items first.

Qu1: Is this a Corporate issue or personal private PC?

If it is a Corporate issue then they're probably applying policies to enforce Edge and Bing, so no matter what you do it will keep coming back at you.

If it is a private PC, do you have any VPN connections to a corporate system that might be applying Conditional access policies to your device before allowing you to connect? (that's a BYoD + InfoSec requirement for some Corporations that don't/won't provide virtual desktops for you)

Qu2:

Did you make Chrome or Firefox your default browser (anything as default as long as it isn't Edge) ?

Qu3:

Did you then make Chrome/Yahoo/DuckDuckGo your default search engine and remove Bing from your device ?

Qu4:

Did you apply the registry modification to disable Copilot?

If its a private device, with no VPN conditional access, with Chrome as default browser and Edge fully removed, then I'd advise checking that the registry change actually 'took'. If it hasn't, rerun the registry change and reboot twice.

If that still hasn't fixed it then we're up against a new level of persistence here.

I went through all of these steps and rebooted, it still did not work.

If you're looking to get rid of the annoying CoPilot chat when scrolling up, this is not Edge but Bing. Change to Google as default search engine.

That'll be the MS NagWare kicking in because you are refusing to be assimilated to the collective. Edge uses Chrome browser tech these days so it runs and feels similar. It's the search engine itself that is different, and IMO just not as good as Google. Edge will keep nagging you to use Bing, and therefore the unavoidable Copilot hijacker. Use Chrome/Google instead but if you must stay with Edge I'd recommend removing the Bing search engine along with others you don't use., and just having Google as the installed engine.

What is annoying is that every time an update gets pushed to Edge it triggers the NagWare again to ask you to set it to default and in some cases I've seen Bing come back. In the first instance I'd say that is just aggressive product marketing as they could easily check existing settings and leave the updated Edge as the alternate browser. In the second instance, that's just plain underhand tactics. Both are a lack of respect for the end-user's choice.

Caveat: If you device is controlled by a company admin who sets those browser and search engine options by policy then you can't do anything other than log a ticket to ask for an exception. You'll probably get bounced back on security (such as password management storage for ISO/SOC complaince) or applications compatibility grounds if they didn't test with all browser types before publishing, but at least you went down trying to defend the right to choose.