Microsoft in their infinite wisdom has replaced the Hide Desktop icon with Copilot.

You can hide it via normal settings.

I had it gone within two minutes if seeing it appear. Found this thread on it:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/how-to-uninstall-copilot-i-dont-want-to-disable-it/b301b77d-b879-4433-9979-f8795805e9f1

The top pinned answer has a single line reg command that I used. I assume there are still pieces of it that will just always be around, but at least it's out of my mind for now.

The GPO method should work similarly, and it's what I'm going to try as soon as I see it start showing up on my work domain. I say when, not if, because these things have a way of getting around our deployment schedules. I just know one day will get a dm from a user asking if its a virus and I'll end up finding out a third of the office already loves it.

They added it to my task bar in front of my pinned apps, I right clicked and went into the task bar settings to remove it.

(Basically the same way you remove the search icon and things like that)

I think it's currently in A/B testing as it's not like this on either of my Windows machines that installed updates this week. I don't think they let you disable the things you're in A/B testing for.

Either that, or it's not GDPR compliant, and they're not rolling it out to the UK or EU.

I was able to disable autopilot with a registry change but I don't remember where I found the link. It wasn't easy to find at the time when I looked. That being said if you reply asking for the link I'll try and find it but otherwise, yes.

Edit to add that I'm specifically talking about hiding or disabling autopilot bloatware, not just the icon.