Copilot can be hidden from the Windows 11 taskbar or switched off in the registry
On Windows 11, Copilot can be taken out of the taskbar in a few clicks, or turned off across the whole system through the registry.
Copilot has been part of Windows 11 since version 23H2, and Microsoft’s assistant is now built into the system rather than offered as a separate application. Removing it through the "Uninstall apps" section of Settings is not enough.
The simplest step is to take it out of the taskbar: open Settings, go to Personalization, then Taskbar, select Copilot and turn the option off. The assistant stays on the machine but no longer appears in the bar.
Disabling it entirely means editing the registry. After opening regedit with Windows + R, the path HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Policies/Microsoft/Windows needs a new key named WindowsCopilot, and inside it a 32-bit DWORD value named TurnOffWindowsCopilot set to 1.
Microsoft now treats that policy as legacy and it may stop working in future builds. Since the optional preview of May 2025, Copilot no longer opens in a sidebar but in a small prompt window, and Windows + C launches the Microsoft 365 Copilot app.
