Microsoft is putting AI actions into the Windows File Explorer

Obligatory “learn to use your computer and install another OS” post. You’ll probably find that your computer becomes MORE useful, not less.

This seems more like a warning to me.

i'm so tired of ai

Today I had to disable Copilot in Notepad.

Notepad.

The shitty word editor that you use to jot down your shitty writing before copypasting it into somewhere else to put actual work into it.

You’re telling me I can’t change the shitty line-spacing in shitty Notepad, but I can get a top-of-the-line corporate LLM to help me with my purposely shitty writing?

#keepnotepadshitty

You know it's funny that Microsoft took this feature from Apple from macOS. But here's the thing right? This shit requires a super computer npu to run and meanwhile my 2012 MacBook Pro with a core i5 3rd gen running opencore legacy patcher can just do this stuff in the exact same way. For the features one would actually wanna use this for.

If Linux was more compatible with a lot of programs/games there would be absolutely no reason to install windows ever again

I was actually delighted when Windows 11 added tabs to notepad and explorer, and layers make MSPaint worth using.

But all of these things became buggy messes. Explorer showing ads for OneDrive and inexplicable behavior, On more than one occasion, the address bar would become unusable, and I deeply resent having to use the mouse to do simple tasks.

Now I know that this was prelude to Copilot.

So now I daily drive Debian making me a computer user, not a resource for billionaires to mine.

Damn I thought it was going to be at least useful like a text prompt.

"Search all these files dumped and find me the ones from my old pc, move them all to the same location on the biggest spare partition that isn't the os one, and then organize them into folders by general idea without breaking up the coherency of the directories. And do it without losing the existing modified or created dates. Retain the original organization in an xml doc that you can read, just in case I don't like the organization and want to try again."

Or

"Install all libre stuff and all of the most useful windows tools. Delete, disable, tear out, and block all telemetry from this Windows installation. There must be privacy and zero enshittification on this computer. Go through, file by file, including all hidden and file systems and services, reading through each and every binary, and decompile, rip out any spyware or telemetry, and recompile. You have a week and this system will be disconnected from the internet entirely for the duration. Go."

This is the type of ai that would actually be useful to me. Imagine the power of being able to fully delegate lower level tasks like this.

possible issues:

1. blurred a part of the photo that shouldn't be blurred, data loss
2. erased the wrong object, data loss
3. deleted large chunks of content in my docs/ppts/spreadsheets I wanted to keep, data loss

This is a really bad idea

Every single story about windows 11 makes me hope I can convince IT to let me migrate my work laptop to linux before October.

This is a whole new level of data mining, which is why they want it. Now they will scan everything that's open.

Don't get me wrong - this is awful and is just another misstep in a long line of missteps by Microsoft.

But I also can't help but chuckle at this. It is so clear that "AI" as it has been developed today is hitting a peak of what it can do. These corporations are desperate to shove it in every product they possibly can to drive sales and valuations to make shareholders wet and yet the only things they ever advertise AI being capable of are crap like summaries, background removal, background insertion, grammar/typo checking, list making, web searching, etc. Most of it being crap that I have never once heard of a person being even remotely interested in... and why would they be? Why would someone want to edit their photos to add a different sky, new people, etc to create memories that never happened?

man I'm so glad I'll never use windows again.

If it ran with local model(s), as in, ran on your PC entirely, I would have no problem with this.

Windows 11 doesn't even have a working file manager or text editor anymore. This is not a serious operating system.

I love how even this flagship feature is just one more lazy shortcut to another app that bloats the context menu 😅

this is going to cause so much data loss...

Article doesn't state this but I assume this is done via Copilot, so anything you use it on goes direct to Microsoft cloud, right?

I am generally opposed to the integration of generative AI in consumer hardware, since it doesn’t have much practical utility at this point.

However, the features described in this article mostly have to do with extracting information from images. This is actually quite useful! For example, macOS allows users to select text and automatically mask objects from images. It’s a feature I use heavily and wish other operating systems had good support for.

"Users throw windows in trash and install linux" - new headline

I just get happier with each passing month that I don't use windows anymore. The freedom of having my hardware and data no longer serving the corporate interests of the operating system vendor is great.

Microsoft will have AI tracking everything I do and taking screenshots as well. Just what I have been asking for. /s

No they're not because I'm on Linux

They're better make it so the context menu doesn't take 2s to fully load while moving the bottom rows around first.

Bitch, every valid action for a file is in the diving registry, sorted by file type. Why do you need to think about this?

Was arranging a completely unrelated service with a client today and apropos of absolutely nothing he went full jaw-foamingly off his tits about how shite win11 was.

FreeCommander XE is pretty cool, I suggest it