Remove Copilot, AI & Bloatware From Windows 11

Quick Answers

Common questions answered at a glance

What is bloatware?

Software that was installed on your PC before you purchased it, or by Windows updates, that you never requested. These apps all run in the background, use up about 100–300MB of RAM, take up 500MB–2GB of disk space, and bloat away for most people.

What is Windows Copilot?

How to Remove AI from Windows?

Will removing any bloatware or Copilot break anything?

Windows ships with apps you never asked for. Candy Crush, Copilot, Clipchamp, Microsoft News, Solitaire Collection, Xbox Game Bar — all preinstalled, all background processes, all chewing up your RAM and disk and eating into your personal disk space without your permission. And in 2025 and 2026 Microsoft added an entirely new layer: AI features packed into almost every corner of the operating system so when people say “What didn’t you ask for that’s in Windows?” you’ll have an acute response.This guide rolls in all things in Windows installed on your PC without asking, why it matters, and how to remove all of it — including Copilot, Recall, and the 13+ AI features recently added to Windows 11 by default.

IQON's automatic optimizations can help resolve many of these issues with one click.

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No PowerShell commands. No scary registry hacks. Just clear-as-day instructions that anyone can follow, and at the end we’ll point out how our app tackles all of this in a single click.

The Full Bloatware List — What Windows Installs Without Asking

Here’s everything a typical Windows 11 PC might come with out of the box that most Windows users don’t want:Microsoft Copilot — AI assistant. Runs background processes, sends data to Microsoft’s cloud. Covered below.Microsoft 365 Copilot — Separate from main Copilot app; embedded in Word / Excel / PowerPoint / Outlook, pulls from documents / emails.Clipchamp — Video editor. Most users will use CapCut or DaVinci Resolve. Takes up disk space, runs background processes.Microsoft News / MSN — Pulls feeds through your Widgets panel / task bar, uses bandwidth to pull down articles and ads you didn’t ask for.Candy Crush Saga — A mobile game. On your desktop. Preinstalled. Still.Microsoft Solitaire Collection — Includes ads unless you ‘pay to cut..or skip the ads’ for a subscription. Runs background processes, even when closed.Xbox Game Bar — Loads to consume 200–400 MB of RAM and add 18–23 ms of input latency. Our Game Bar guide covers this in depth.Microsoft Teams — Chat app for businesses. Loads at startup, stays in memory. Most personal users don’t need it.OneDrive — Cloud storage. Useful if you use it, but it auto-starts, syncs in the background, and nags you to sign up for Microsoft 365 if you’re not already subscribed.Windows Widgets — The news/weather panel on your taskbar. Uses 100–150 MB of RAM to show content you didn’t ask for.Outlook (new) — As part of its AI-driven software push, Microsoft is promoting a new Outlook as a replacement for the Mail app. It integrates with Copilot features and includes ads for Microsoft 365.LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Spotify — Some OEM installs include these as preloaded shortcuts or full apps. They vary by manufacturer (Dell, HP, Lenovo all add their own on top of Microsoft’s).That’s before we even get into manufacturer bloatware. Dell ships with SupportAssist and Dell Digital Delivery. HP includes HP Support Assistant and HP Smart. Lenovo adds Lenovo Vantage and sometimes McAfee. These add another 500 MB–1 GB of RAM consumption and disk usage.

The AI Problem — Why This Is Different From Normal Bloatware

Bloatware has been around since at least Windows XP. Candy Crush is obnoxious, but it’s not doing anything untoward — it takes up space that’s all. The AI features Microsoft added in the years 2025 and 2026 are different — they’re not just sitting there. They’re watching and processing and sending data.Windows 11 ships with over 13 AI features switched on by default. A recent r/pcmasterrace post about disabling all 13 had thousands of upvotes and the top comment is “Wait until an update switches those back for you.” That’s not cynicism, it’s experience: Windows updates repeatedly turn stuff back on that you disabled.Here is what’s running:Copilot — The main AI assistant. Lives in the taskbar, Edge, Notepad, Office, Outlook. Can access documents, emails, and browsing activity to generate a response. Information sent to Azure for “processing.”Recall — Takes frequent screenshots of your screen and stores them in a searchable database. Now, there is no “Scary Scooper” situation, but this is limited to Copilot+ PCs with certain types of NPU hardware (that’s “Neural Processing Unit”). Security researcher Kevin Beaumont found significant privacy concerns with the implementation — among other things, sensitive data like credit card numbers could be captured by design.AI Search Suggestions — Call up the Windows search bar, now that’s going through an AI for processing, meaning there’s lag and you’re sending it to Microsoft’s server instead of searching local files.AI in Notepad, Paint, Photos — Microsoft has added “AI rewriting” to Notepad, “AI image generation” to Paint, and “AI-powered edit” to Photos, all three of which phone home to Microsoft servers when used.What’s interesting here isn’t that AI’s bad it’s that absolutely zero of this was opt-in. All these lands on your PC through updates, on by default; they’re sucking up some resources, and slinging data to Microsoft without asking first. For people who bought a computer to do specific things — work, browse, game — now their machine’s power is being marshaled to facilitate things they never asked it to.

Apps That Sneak In Other Apps (PUPs)

It’s not just Microsoft. Download free software from the internet — a PDF reader, a video converter, a file archiver, a screenshot tool — you might find that the installer comes with extra software you didn’t ask for.These are called PUPs — Potentially Unwanted Programs. They aim to slip by you while you tap “Next, Next, Next, Finish”. A sneaky little pre-checked checkbox buried in the installer. A “Recommended” option that’s actually a totally separate piece of software. A toolbar that takes over your search engine.Examples include McAfee or Norton trials that come with all sorts of other software, browser toolbars that reflect back the search engine you came from, “System optimizers” that inform you they’ve found thousands of “errors” and would like you to spend money for the fixes, free antivirus that supplies you with consistent pop-up ads.These aren’t really viruses — they’re not trying to steal your passwords or anything. But they suck RAM, slow your browser down, change settings without asking, and can even be tricky to uninstall. Malwarebytes actually recognizes PUPs as their own class of software which can “compromise your privacy and security by tracking your online activity or displaying targeted ads.”How do you avoid them? Always always always choose “Custom” or “Advanced” installation when installing free stuff, and read every screen. Uncheck anything that isn’t the thing you really wanted. If you have an installer that doesn’t prompt you to deselect unwanted extras, you may want to look elsewhere.

The Reinstall Problem — Why Bloatware Comes Back

This is the part that a lot of guides leave out. You could spend half an hour clicking through and uninstalling Candy Crush, Clipchamp, Microsoft News, and a dozen more. Then a Windows update rolls through, and they’re all back.This happens because of a Windows feature called “Consumer Experiences.” It’s a system-level setting that tells Windows it can go ahead and download and install these promoted apps automatically. As Ars Technica’s Andrew Cunningham explained, Windows 11 has assumed “an especially user-hostile attitude toward advertising and the forced use of other Microsoft products,” and the only way to stop bloatware from returning is deactivating Consumer Experiences at the system level.How to block Consumer Experiences: Those running Windows 11 Pro can go to Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc) to Computer Configuration → Administrative Templates → Windows Components → Cloud Content → “Turn off Microsoft consumer experiences” → Enabled. On Windows 11 Home, you’ll need a registry edit: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\CloudContent, create a DWORD value and name it DisableWindowsConsumerFeatures and give it a value of 1.

How to Remove Copilot From Windows 11

Copilot is built into multiple levels of Windows, and to remove it completely means going through all tiers. Here’s how.Step 1: Remove the Copilot app. Settings → Apps → Installed Apps → search for “Copilot” → Uninstall. Do this with “Microsoft 365 Copilot” if you see it in a list separately.Step 2: Hide the button from the taskbar. Settings → Personalization → Taskbar → toggle Copilot off.Step 3: Disable Copilot at the system level. This prevents Windows from re-enabling it after updates. On Windows 11 Pro: open Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc) → User Configuration → Administrative Templates → Windows Components → Windows Copilot → “Turn off Windows Copilot” → Enabled. On Windows 11 Home: open Registry Editor, navigate to HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsCopilot, create a DWORD named TurnOffWindowsCopilot and set it to 1. Pureinfotech’s comprehensive walkthrough covers every step with screenshots.Step 4: Disable Copilot inside individual apps. In Edge: Settings → Sidebar → turn off Copilot. In Notepad: the AI rewrite feature can be toggled off in Notepad’s settings. In Outlook and Office apps: Copilot features are managed through Microsoft 365 admin settings or individual app preferences. These can’t be fully uninstalled, but they can be turned off.That’s 4 steps in multiple locations, plus a registry edit. It’s not difficult, but it’s not exactly “just uninstall it” either. Our app does all of that in one click — it uninstalls the Copilot package, sets the registry policies, and hides the taskbar button. But the manual steps above work perfectly fine on their own.

How to Remove Everything Else

For standard bloatware (Candy Crush, Clipchamp, News, Solitaire, etc.): Right-click the app in the Start Menu → Uninstall. Or go to Settings → Apps → Installed Apps and uninstall from there. Both methods work.For Widgets: Settings → Personalization → Taskbar → toggle Widgets off. This will conceal the everything panel and stop it from gobbling up RAM downloading news content.For OneDrive (if you never use it): Settings → Apps → Installed Apps → Microsoft OneDrive → Uninstall. This will free up the background sync process and the startup entry.For manufacturer bloatware (Dell SupportAssist, HP Smart, McAfee, etc.): Same process. Settings → Apps → find and uninstall. The McAfee app in particular is exceptionally tenacious — you might need to nab the official McAfee removal tool from their website to scrub it out properly.For AI in search, Notepad and Edge: Each has its own toggle in its own settings menu. Windows Latest documented how to turn off all 13 AI features without a third-party tool.Then block Consumer Experiences (discussed above) so none of it returns after the next Windows update.

What You Lose (and What You Don’t)

Removing Copilot means you’ll no longer have the native AI assistant living in your taskbar, or the AI features in Edge, Notepad or Office. You will not lose the ability to access AI. You can still use ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or anyone else you prefer through your browser. The difference is rather than AI always running in the background and accessing your files, you choose when to use it.Removing bloatware means losing access to apps like Candy Crush, Clipchamp and the Solitaire Collection, but if you actually use any of them, you can simply reinstall them individually from the Microsoft Store.Disabling Consumer Experiences means that Windows stops publishing the promoted apps and downloading them after updates. You can always toggle it back on if you change your mind.Everything is reversible. Nothing is permanent.

What This Actually Frees Up

After clearing out bloatware, pulling Copilot, and locking down Consumer Experiences, most people wind up with:• 200–500 MB of RAM back — RAM your apps and games can actually put to work• 1–3 GB of disk space recovered — that matters a lot on a 256 GB drive• Fewer background processes fighting for CPU time• Less data leaving your machine — telemetry, AI processing, and promo content all stop phoning home• No more surprise app installations after Windows updatesOn a machine with 8 GB of RAM, getting 500 MB back is real — that’s 6% of your total memory handed back to the programs you actually chose to run.

Keep Going

This guide covers bloatware and AI removal specifically. For the other stuff dragging your PC down, we’ve got dedicated guides for each:• Why Is My PC So Slow? — The full diagnostic covering every common cause• Startup Optimization — Which programs are safe to disable at boot and which to leave alone• Telemetry & Location Tracking — Everything Windows collects and how to shut it off• Disk Space Cleanup — Hibernation file, temp files, Storage Sense, and getting space back• Background Apps — How to stop apps from running when you’re not using themWe built IQON because the people who need help the most were getting the worst advice. Searching for “remove bloatware” returns articles with 15 PowerShell commands and no explanation of what they do. We think you deserve to understand what’s on your PC and have the choice to remove it — whether you use our app or follow these guides yourself.

How to Remove Copilot, AI, and Bloatware From Windows 11 (2026)