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

[foxmoth]

I don't see it on my version of Word (which is sadly Office 365 for work reasons) but if I find out I will let you know. :]

...this kind of fuckery is why I'm now moving to writing in ancient-ass command-line text editors or maybe more modern Markdown editors if it does not have to be work-related or client-facing, but it sucks. :/

[sovay]

I don't see it on my version of Word (which is sadly Office 365 for work reasons) but if I find out I will let you know.

Thank you. I am glad you are not having to deal with it. I have what is now Microsoft Word Version 16.103, originally the only version of Word that was available in October 2023 when Bertie died. It is what I have written in for decades. It is the platform of my entire body of work. I can't compose in anything other than TextEdit which I do not use for final versions of anything. It feels like having my hands chopped off. I would rather find the hands responsible.

...this kind of fuckery is why I'm now moving to writing in ancient-ass command-line text editors or maybe more modern Markdown editors if it does not have to be work-related or client-facing, but it sucks.

It is increasing the sense that I am deluded ever to have thought that I had any kind of space left in the world: I can't even look at my own documents without this abomination in them. And everything is a fingernail hold right now and it's hard to have fingernails without hands.

[edit] I fixed the problem through unbelievably stupid means. I appreciate your listening through the successive layers of despair.

[selkie]

I don't know how they did something more diabolical than Clippy, really.
Is yours a subscription product? I'm on Word 2010 at work and on Binky, so I think any kind of Gen AI is just beyond it, and our Word 365 has just had its updates turned off for ever and ever.
UGH, how rotten and unuseful all of it is.

[sovay]

Is yours a subscription product?

No! I purchased it flat out! It has done nothing for years except allow me to write and all of a sudden it has changed its icon (hideously) and has a floating blind spot of AI. It does not have a controllable option for updates, either, or I would have turned that off at the same time as the connected experiences: I can check for updates, but not tell it not to download them. It's weird and disgusting and I don't see how I can write around it when it is constantly moving and rolls through text in the process of composition. It's not even like a cursor. It can block out entire short words. And there's no clear option for removing it and possibly no option at all.

[princessofgeeks]

I have no useful suggestions but I totally feel your rage and frustration. Argh.

[f0rrest]

In the days when you were hopeless and poor ...

[aurumcalendula]

Ugh. It sounds like you might need to briefly enable connected experiences to get the setting to turn it off? https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255932892?sortBy=rank

https://www.reddit.com/r/Office365/comments/1i4xu9v/comment/mb35kq1/

[batdina]

like clippy, it can be turned off, but it cannot be removed. I think there's no institutional memory at Microsoft vis a vis the furor over clippy in the 90s so it never occurred to them that this creepy bugger would be a problem.

[sovay]

Ugh. It sounds like you might need to briefly enable connected experiences to get the setting to turn it off?

I appreciate the links: I have tried that route while on the phone with two different Apple support providers and it hasn't worked. The second tech was much more knowledgeable, even screen-shared with me to see the problem for herself, and was flabbergasted.

[sovay]

In the days when you were hopeless and poor ...

I am currently hopeless and poor.

[sovay]

I have no useful suggestions but I totally feel your rage and frustration. Argh.

Thank you!

[sovay]

like clippy, it can be turned off, but it cannot be removed.

I can't even turn it off. I have spent most of my evening trying to do so. At this point I am moving toward the scorched earth last resort of reinstalling an older version of Word.

[aurumcalendula]

Oh no! I hope you eventually find a solution.

[batdina]

I can't even turn it off.

Scorched earth may not be a bad plan. (I've been considering torching word altogether.)

[thomasyan]

Searching around, I also was told "you need to first re-enable connected experiences, quit out of ALL Microsoft apps, restart Word, and then you should be able to disable Copilot and connected experiences."

[sovay]

Searching around, I also was told "you need to first re-enable connected experiences, quit out of ALL Microsoft apps, restart Word, and then you should be able to disable Copilot and connected experiences."

That route did not work for me even when monitored in real time by professionals, but nuking the Copilot-corrupted version of Word and reinstalling from 2023 scratch, stupidly, did.

[sovay]

Scorched earth may not be a bad plan. (I've been considering torching word altogether.)

Earth scorched successfully through application of unfathomable stupidity. I understand your sentiments.

[foxmoth]

Same. Honestly, I'm considering what happens if I turn in everything in Markdown, RTF, or LaTeX and refuse to engage with any gig that REQUIRES Microsoft Word specifically. The answer is probably that I stop getting gig work, but it is very tempting.

[sovay]

Oh no! I hope you eventually find a solution.

I found one and it was stupid beyond belief.

[foxmoth]

No worries and sorry I was afk - I'm dealing with an extremely large download (music VSTs, yes this is a legal purchase yes they are gigabytes large for good reason) so I was off the computer. Sympathies and I am SO sorry you had to wrassle this.

There's parallel-ish fuckery in music software to the point that I am increasing my flirtations with coding my own damn plugins for an open-source DAW like Ardour via JUCE or C++ or some damn thing, and I am a DEEPLY MEDIOCRE to ACTIVELY BAD coder. (Bafflegab translator: instead of increasingly cursed fuckery in paid music production software for orchestral mockup, I'm starting to think that if I'm never working in the industry ANYWAY, I might as well tiptoe toward rolling my own. I DEEPLY resent being pushed to LINUX as someone who has vaguely avoided Linux out of laziness since Linux EXISTED.

[kaffy_r]

Congratulations on having figured out how to solve the problem. I don't tend to use Microsoft Word if at all possible, since I'm a Google and WordPerfect fan, but I've had situations that have been somewhat similar. There's both a joy in figuring it out, and a headachy frustration in having to be the figurer. Go, you!

[gwynnega]

I am glad you fixed the problem, but ARGH!!!

[thomasyan]

Gah, that's worrisome (just what shenanigans is MS doing under the hood?) but glad you got Copilot to disappear

[thistleingrey]

I use standalone Word, but it's on Windows, where I've been able to disable Copilot, so far.

Think I found an Apple Support discussion that sounds like your post! In any case, if the Copilot widget was added on Mac ahead of the Prefs > Proofing Tools check box that's meant to go with it, that's a pretty bad UX bug (atop the bad UX of Copilot itself), and I am sorry.

[gullyfoyle]

((hugs))
This video is not safe for work, but at least that's one problem you don't have anymore....

https://youtu.be/wwQjy_ZTaRM?si=D9UDsZBcpAG4zs4R