104 pointsby bundie8 hours ago21 comments
  • seemaze6 hours ago
    It's worse than that. On my corporate mac when I try to login with Entra, the only option I get is a hyperlink to 'experience Copilot on the web'.

    Also, it seems like all the Copilot 'connected experiences' are really just a chat window without any real integration with the applications they are embedded in. Claude is more useful in Excel than Copilot.. how? Microsoft's consistently incoherent and hobbled rollout of Copilot is why I find Anthropic's offerings so much better. It just allow me to get stuff done.

    My one hope was that Copilot would solve the Microsoft documentation tarpit by leveraging enormous context to root out the answers to my questions. When chatGPT can finally one-shot Microsoft product queries with the correct platform, release, license, and 'gotchas'.. I'll know we've hit AGI.

    • jerf5 hours ago
      "Also, it seems like all the Copilot 'connected experiences' are really just a chat window without any real integration with the applications they are embedded in."

      I was triple-booked today. Two of the meetings in question should have had significant overlap between attendees. I figured, hey, there's this Copilot thing here, I'll ask it what the overlap is, that's the sort of thing an AI should be able to do. It comes back and reports that there is one person in both meetings, and that "one person" isn't even me. That doesn't seem right. One of the autocompleted suggestions for the next thing to ask is "show me the entire list of attendees" so I'm like, sure, do that.

      It turns out that the API Copilot has access to can only access the first ten attendees of the meetings. Both meetings were much larger than that.

      Insert rant here about hobbling 2026 servers with random "plucked out of my bum" limits on processing based on the capabilities of roughly 2000-era servers for the sheer silliness of a default 10-attendee limit being imposed on any API into Outlook.

      But also in general what a complete waste of hooking up an amazingly sophisticated AI model to such an impoverished view of the world.

      • bombcar4 hours ago
        There are innumerable companies built around the Outlook calendar; you’d think Microsoft could get something right here with AI; but they seem unable.
      • JSR_FDED3 hours ago
        "plucked out of my bum" sounds so much more sophisticated than “pulled out of my ass”
        • RickHull3 hours ago
          Plucked betwixt mine cheeks
    • bonesss5 hours ago
      Ha ha, only serious: I’ll know we’ve hit AGI when the systems start convincing execs and sales types to solve whatever ‘it’ is in emacs.

      A couple shared lisp files, and org-mode, we can have that ready before lunch…” detonating contracts and SaaS vendors like it was the end of Fight Club.

    • p_ing3 hours ago
      You’re using the wrong app. You need the M365 Copilot app which supports Entra IDs.
    • hagbard_c6 hours ago
      > When chatGPT can finally one-shot Microsoft product queries with the correct platform, release, license, and 'gotchas'.. I'll know we've hit AGI.

      In that case a simple few lines of whatever language you prefer would class as "AGI". Here's a sample session using the non-existing oracle.sh tool;

         oracle.sh 'tell me how to do ${thing} in Microsoft ${product} and which licence requirements that brings'
       
         (computer noises)
      
         oracle: Avoid using Microsoft ${product}, use one of the alternatives listed in this web search: 
      
            https://search.engine.org/search?q=alternatives%20to%20Microsoft%20${product}
  • kstrauser7 hours ago
    Is that like MS’s version of an Electron app? Aren’t most Electron apps just Chrom{e,ium} plus some JS to run inside it?

    Asking seriously, not snarkily. That’s my understanding but maybe I’m wrong about it.

    • FuriouslyAdrift7 hours ago
      Microsoft switched from Electron to their own WebView2 a while ago.

      https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/webview...

      • cogman106 hours ago
        Main difference, electron bundles all of chrome with every app. WebView2 can do that, but the recommended route is one that shares the runtime across multiple apps (what ms does). So you end up with just 1 webview2 on the system + your app specific code ultimately significantly shrinking the distribution size.
        • steve19776 hours ago
          MSHTML.dll reborn
          • Someone12345 hours ago
            Mostly, yes. But since they upstream Chromium, it is more likely to remain evergreen than MSHTML ever was.
    • Normal_gaussian7 hours ago
      Electron is NodeJS + Chromium + Some native control APIs (trays/menus/shortcuts/window management) + update & packaging.

      So a lot more can be done with an electron app, while still staying mostly in the web based comfort zone.

    • deafpolygon4 hours ago
      I think you meant Chrom(e|ium). Chrom{e,ium} expands out to Chrome Chromium. Which isn't what you meant, I think.
  • JanneVee7 hours ago
    If I was to speculate, this is the result of "rank n' yank" where the performative productivity is more important than actual productivity. If true it says something about why AI is pushed hard by Microsoft, it make performative productivity much more easier.
    • steve19776 hours ago
      You cannot really use most Copilot products for actual productivity, even if you wanted to.

      Last time I checked, Copilot in Outlook did not have access to my calendar data.

      • p_ing3 hours ago
        I have plenty of users using it for real productivity purposes. Yes, it has access to Exchange Online calendars.
        • tempodox3 hours ago
          Could these be different products, like Home edition vs Pro edition?
          • p_ingan hour ago
            I only have experience with the M365 enterprise services. I don’t use M365 for personal stuff, I’m too cheap for that.
      • JanneVee4 hours ago
        Yeah, I gave up trying to find productivity uses for the copilot in office because of limitations like that.
  • layer87 hours ago
    More informative article: https://www.windowslatest.com/2026/04/05/new-copilot-for-win...

    It seems to actually use a modified copy of Edge in a subfolder.

  • Ciantic6 hours ago
    What is the reason they don't use the WebView2? Microsoft Teams uses WebView2, surely it should be enough for Copilot. This defeats the whole point of having WebView builtin and shipped with the Windows 11.
  • zamadatix7 hours ago
    One of the comments led to an article which really goes into the details of what exactly is packaged here https://www.windowslatest.com/2026/04/05/new-copilot-for-win...
  • ygra7 hours ago
    So, like edit.com and QBasic. What is old is new again.
    • rob746 hours ago
      Except that was done to save disk space (according to https://jeffpar.github.io/kbarchive/kb/063/Q63777/, "When EDIT.COM is executed in MS-DOS versions 5.0 and later, it invokes QBASIC.EXE with the /EDITOR switch", whereas this installs a whole new copy of the Edge browser (850 MB) on a system where in 90+% of cases it's already installed...
      • rbanffy6 hours ago
        Someone has their bonus tied to how many copies of Edge are installed.
        • fingerlocks4 hours ago
          The hilarious side effect of this is that Intune/Defender on MacOS flags the multiple copies of edge for non-compliance. Maybe this is just something that happens to MSFT employees, not sure, but I’ve had to waste many hours filing for false positive exceptions because not a single Microsoft product can figure how to use a Mach-o shared dylib path
    • eliasson7 hours ago
      Wait. What? Was that the case? Young me never realised that! =)
      • bombcar4 hours ago
        It was. And you could do things with moving it to previous releases of DOS too if I remember. QB.EXE the actual compiler was compatible, too.

        See also https://qb64.com/

  • gradientsrneatan hour ago
    busybox does a similar trick where it executes a different program based on the program's name. But it uses symlinks for the different names, so it doesn't use significantly more space by doing this.
  • nchmy7 hours ago
    I used edge ever since it was chromium-based, but I moved to linux and vivaldi 6 months ago and never looked back.
  • OnionBlender6 hours ago
    I'm forced to use Copilot at work. I can't resize the font size and there is usually a delay when typing in it for the first time. In Outlook, it often opens the side panel on its own.
  • elwray7 hours ago
    wow. I wonder how this was found out originally?
  • aquir7 hours ago
    this is hilarious! I wish I was a fly on the wall when this decision was made...
  • heliumtera7 hours ago
    Any webpage you see is really just chromium. All new product you see from today startups are really just post request to the cheapest inference provider
  • BoredPositron7 hours ago
    That's hilarious. I wonder how many edge versions are deployed in a standard install.
    • snitch1827 hours ago
      And how many chromiums in general...
      • steve19776 hours ago
        It's chromiums all the way down.
  • BorisMelnik6 hours ago
    why does Microsoft just not listen to its people
  • Simulacra4 hours ago
    Does this mean that Edge is only for entertainment purposes, too?
  • fortran777 hours ago
    Every electron app is really just a browser, isn't it?
  • deafpolygon4 hours ago
    That's really pushing the boundaries on what a "minimum viable product" can be.
  • adornKey4 hours ago
    Ätsch!
  • throwuxiytayq7 hours ago
    [flagged]
    • illusive40807 hours ago
      Chill, not everything has to be political on HN.

      Edit: OP edited out the political message from their post

      • ses19847 hours ago
        I strongly appreciate being able to see the thread without logging in (or ever visiting that site).
        • ToucanLoucan7 hours ago
          Especially since without an account they won't even let you see replies anymore. This is excellent
        • pessimizer6 hours ago
          There are only two big instances that work any more, everybody is aware of them including twitter, and they exist only because twitter allows them as a safety valve for upper middle class people who believe that political consumption is a thing that works.

          By the grace of Musk, a few thousand* 1) nerds who don't register on any invasive social media and 2) libs with the admirable self-control not to spend all day on twitter yelling about twitter, get a tiny trickle of nitter that can be cut off at will.

          Meanwhile, we're on ycombinator.com.

          Boycotting is not a thing that works under monopoly (especially with "free" products.) Monopolies boycott you.

          -----

          [*] I'm making this up, it could literally be hundreds, not even thousands. I don't think nitter has a sane caching strategy, and if it were more than a few users the servers would catch on fire.

          Although I wouldn't be surprised at all if it turned out that the last nitter instances were being run from "X" headquarters as a project to track and study individual behavior (When do nitter users join X? When people quit X, do they still use nitter? When do people who have X accounts use nitter to conceal what they're looking at? Which accounts are especially popular for nitter users? What are the political opinions and demographics of nitter users, etc...). Or instead of X, it could be feds doing the same thing.

          If so, they would have plenty of processor and the real user numbers could be tens or hundreds of thousands.

      • xigoi6 hours ago
        A link that allows you to actually read the content has nothing to do with politics.
        • illusive40806 hours ago
          The poster edited their post. Originally there was a political message in it.
          • hagbard_c6 hours ago
            It seems to be there still unless you don't count his expression of severe MDS to be political.

            I run my own bitter instance which mostly works although it has to be restarted frequently due to it claiming to be 'out of tokens'.

      • nekusar7 hours ago
        [flagged]
        • illusive40807 hours ago
          I’m a conservative, not a nazi. You don’t need to be attacking people on this site. This isn’t Reddit.
          • sheikhnbake7 hours ago
            > a conservative, not a nazi

            who regurgitates pro-billionaire talking points and thinks the poor just need to lift themselves up by their bootstraps, with some christian persecution complex sprinkled in

            You aren't fooling anyone, except maybe yourself

            • illusive40807 hours ago
              You’re projecting that on me. All I’m saying is this isn’t Reddit; HN is for civil discourse.
              • vultour6 hours ago
                Is this a joke? You proclaim your support for a party that proudly posts AI-generated pictures of Obama as a monkey, shits out vitriol-filled messages on literally every holiday, and sends the gestapo to execute American citizens in the streets, and then you demand civil discourse? I'm sorry but that ship has sailed, there is no reason why someone should maintain a civil discussion with you.
              • ses19847 hours ago
                Maybe some of us are frustrated that the political party of your ideology has gone far beyond civil discourse.

                How about conservatives have some civil discourse with the nazis in your political parties.

              • sheikhnbake7 hours ago
                It's not projecting when it's based directly on your comment history. I used to spout the same things about two decades ago. Hopefully you wise up at some point.
                • illusive40806 hours ago
                  Condescending dismissal of others based on a quick comment sleuthing is not a good behavior on HN. Take care.
                  • sheikhnbake6 hours ago
                    The dismissal is based on decades of lived experience and seeing the same things over and over again. You aren't attempting to engage in good faith and clearly aren't interested in discussing anything more in-depth so my dismissal seems to be well placed.
                    • illusive40804 hours ago
                      No, I’m sticking to the subject and not allowing you to drag me into side arguments. Go ahead and reply, you can have the final word.

                      I also have Decades Of Lived Experience as well, so I’m not sure how this qualifies you to be condescending to me.

                      • sheikhnbake3 hours ago
                        You voluntarily got involved in a political discussion when you lamely attempted to assert that some things aren't political.

                        The fact that you have decades of experience on this ball of mud and still espouse the things you do is embarrassing.

                        You insist that the majority of impoverished are in their situation because of poor life choices while probably also believing that the economy and the levers of political power are rigged (which they are).

                        You know that the working class has the odds stacked against them while punching down at those less fortunate. Your family may very well suffer from their own bad choices.

                        I would posit that those choices aren't made in a vacuum. You can preach about personal responsibility while also recognizing systemic and economic injustice against the working class. But you probably won't. You'll keep insisting that lifting yourself up by your bootstraps is a physical possibility. In the end you're just repeating things that help the oligarchy and their strangle hold on our country and the world at large.

        • dpkirchner7 hours ago
          Ironic that this link is hosted on Substack, eh? It's always a bummer to see that in the header after opening a page.