Microsoft is Adding an 'Experimental Agentic Features' Toggle To Windows 11 (windowscentral.com) 13
Microsoft has rolled out a new preview build for Windows 11 Insiders in the Dev and Beta Channel this week that introduces a new toggle called 'experimental agentic features' that can be enabled or disabled in the Windows Settings app. From a report: According to Microsoft, this new toggle is designed to "allow agents to use new Windows agentic features." The company says the feature will work with AI-powered apps, which "help you automate everyday tasks -- like organizing files, scheduling meetings, or sending emails -- so you can spend less time on busy work and more time on what matters most. One powerful way apps are implementing AI today is by interacting with your apps and your files, using vision and advanced reasoning to click, type and scroll like a human would."
The setting in the Windows Setting says "When this setting is on, agents can use Windows agentic features." Features such as the recently announced Copilot Actions for Windows feature are going to take advantage of this new experimental agentic feature capability.
The setting in the Windows Setting says "When this setting is on, agents can use Windows agentic features." Features such as the recently announced Copilot Actions for Windows feature are going to take advantage of this new experimental agentic feature capability.
Clippy on steroids (Score:3)
Clearly this is what the world was asking for in Windows 11. Never mind fixing bugs like the bottom of windows getting stuck under the task bar and having to faff around to resize them (hey, maybe allow the task bar to be moved!) , the "Oops no internet" setup error loop even when windows had connected to wifi in the previous screen and so on.
No, lets introduce Son Of Clippy!
FFS, get a grip MS.
Re:Clippy on steroids (Score:5, Informative)
Yup, so many major fundamental bugs, but hey, they gotta keep the focus on the AI slop.
Right now on one of my Win11 boxes the start menu is empty, half the icons are missing from the taskbar. At least it means no more ads when I hit the start button, but I feel it is fundamentally, morally wrong for the operating system to be an advertising platform. Either way, I suspect Explorer crashed and restarted badly when switching between KVM systems, as it often does, leading to this.
Right now another of by boxes the task bar is seemingly set to the lowest z-order, covered by other programs, including visual studio.
Opening up a search on explorer breaks the back button, once it goes into "search" mode it loses the ability to have the regular folder display, you need to completely close the window and re-open it. And you can't copy the location, it stays stuck as "search results" mode with no meaningful location in the address bar.
Context menus in explorer are broken, sometimes showing the new UI elements, sometimes the old style UI elements, sometimes they're missing.
If you're unfortunate enough to have to use the preview build for testing, it's far worse. You wanted to click an item in a new-UI app like the start button? Nope! It behaves as though it were unscrolled, instead of the 17th button down, because it was visually third from the top the start menu immediately jumps back to the top of the list and starts the third app from the top, you're getting the calendar app, or photos app, rather than what you clicked on.
The rewrite of task manager dumped a ton of features, task manager frequently crashes, and when you look up the known issues on their public bug list Task Manager still remains with hundreds of "mitigated" and unresolved issues despite task manager being a core piece of functionality.
I'm constantly switching between systems, Kubernetes cluster terminals, both Windows and Linux. I only use Windows when I have to, it has thoroughly slipped into 'enshitified' territory. So many fundamental "the user can't even access what they clicked on" bugs, and "the Windows start button, the core user interface element needed to do things, is missing" bugs, yet somehow AI slop is the highest priority over the ability to actually run the program you want.
Maybe that's the real reason for the agent stuff: "Hey agent, please start this program because the start menu is broken again, and my Bluetooth mouse and keyboard no longer connect."
Good luck with that (Score:1)
That tech is not even remotely ready for use outside of a carefully isolated lab setting.
Fortunately, I will likely not even have to turn it off. The data-collection makes this illegal without informed consent in Europe. And they will not want to tell the world what they are collecting and what they are doing with it.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Interesting)
That tech is not even remotely ready for use outside of a carefully isolated lab setting.
Fortunately, I will likely not even have to turn it off. The data-collection makes this illegal without informed consent in Europe. And they will not want to tell the world what they are collecting and what they are doing with it.
How does Microsoft get by with Windows 11 in Europe? The entire OS is infested with data aggregation by default, and even if you try to escape the defaults, it will continually nag you to allow them to gather your data and sells it as a "security feature." I'd think some regulators would be getting mighty pissy about that nonsense if they understood what it was actually doing.
Will disabling it be reversed on every update? (Score:3)
How long before they remove the option to disable it?
Microsoft logic: Not enough people are using this feature we want used. Remove the ability to disable it.
top kek (Score:1)
I bet telling it to take its newfound power and remove itself from my computer would end up requiring reinstall
This would be an excellent time, macroshaft, to release a SECOND PRODUCT
How about an off switch? (Score:5, Informative)
A "Disable all AI crap and stop pushing this shit already" switch would be more desirable.
Re: (Score:2)
Was about to say something like this. Though I was going to phrase it as "Nuke CoPilot and all AI 'features', and just leave a virtual radioactive crater in my system".
Re: (Score:2)
https://distrowatch.org/ [distrowatch.org]
J/K and I realise that unfortunately Microsoft can basically do whatever it wants, it will not herald the Year of Desktop Linux.
Y'all are still using agentic AI? (Score:1)
Every forward-thinking company has been using post-agentic AI for over a year now. Agentic AI is yesterday's technology. If you're not using post-agentic AI then your company is doomed to failure.