I liked you better when you weren't cool

[sovay]

Does anyone know how to remove the floating Copilot button from a version of Microsoft Word on which I disabled all so-called connected experiences the day I bought the new license more than two years ago and which has nonetheless just sneakily updated itself so that I have an AI-inducing rainbow-colored heartworm constantly keeping pace in the down right corner of the document, blocking out text which I am trying to write? I have looked for suggestions online and most of them seem to require preference options not available in my Mac. But what I need in a Word document is words and nothing else and I cannot deal with a planet-killing visual fault in the middle of them, on top of which the fact that this obscenity can be intruded into my software makes me want to headline the news for the disappearance of the Roko's basilisk boys who put it there. If a program is on my computer, the only person who should be able to tinker with it is me. I am not even eloquent, I am so furious. Any actionable suggestions would be appreciated.

[ETA 2025-11-12 22:23] JESUS CHRIST AFTER AN EVENING ON THE PHONE WITH APPLE SUPPORT WHICH WAS FLABBERGASTED BY THE PROBLEM AND NO SUPPORT WHATSOEVER FROM MICROSOFT I FIXED THE PROBLEM MYSELF WITH A CLEAN INSTALL OF PRE-COPILOT MICROSOFT WORD BECAUSE I NEVER THREW AWAY THE ORIGINAL INSTALL PACKAGE FROM 2023 IT WAS STILL IN MY TRASH I SHOULD NOT HAVE HAD TO REINSTALL FROM MY LITERAL TRASH WELCOME TO 2025

Comments

[marginaliana]

I suspect I have escaped the floating button in my corporate version of Word by means of having an institutional copilot subscription which means we have a separate tab on the toolbar, so they've put all the bullshit there instead. Then again, they hold all Word updates for a month to test them for disaster before they roll them out to us so if the update just happened, maybe next month I will also be screaming about this. Yay Microsoft. Congrats for your absurd trash fix, though?

[sovay]

Then again, they hold all Word updates for a month to test them for disaster before they roll them out to us so if the update just happened, maybe next month I will also be screaming about this. Yay Microsoft. Congrats for your absurd trash fix, though?

Thank you! I remain grateful it worked and I still think it was ridiculous.

As far as I can tell, the floating button was transferred from the toolbar, which strikes me as a nonensensically obstrusive move to begin with. I can't see a point to it other than putting Copilot constantly in the user's face. It's not like no one knows how to find an icon in a toolbar.