Paul wrote:
Has anyone figured out a way to get rid of the obnoxious Copilot sidebar?
I use the CoPilot which appears as a column on the right of an MSEdge window. The width of the answer column can be resized.
The behavior of these various demo implementations, is not exactly the same. Your chat-style interaction with the AI, likely needs a different window
than my "one-and-done-breadcrumb" interactions.
The CoPilot.App and the MSEdge CoPilot column give you two layouts
to choose from.
Hi Paul,
I appreciate your help as I'm at my wits end trying to remove a sidebar!
You may be on to something in that my "chat-style AI" may be the problem.
I don't use the "copilot app" and, in fact, long ago, I had removed that
app when I removed most of the Microsoft default bloaware on Windows 10.
Remove Copilot App for the Current User:
Get-AppxPackage -Name *MicrosoftCopilot* | Remove-AppxPackage
Remove Copilot App for All Users:
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers -Name *MicrosoftCopilot* | Remove-AppxPackage
I don't use "msedge" (the Edge web browser) for Copilot either.
I bring it up using this Edge-created shortcut pinned to the taskbar.
Apparently that's called a Progressive Web App, which, as far as I know, is essentially a website that's been packaged to behave like a native app.
TARGET=
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge_proxy.exe"
--profile-directory=Default --app-id=aioglfahffbnednffnodjbiiojbochai
--app-url=
https://copilot.microsoft.com/
--app-run-on-os-login-mode=windowed --app-launch-source=19
I did try to give the shortcut command-line switches to remove the sidebar
to the left of the Copilot PWA window, but they too weren't respected.
TARGET=
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge_proxy.exe"
--profile-directory=Default --app-id=aioglfahffbnednffnodjbiiojbochai
--app-url=
https://copilot.microsoft.com/
--app-run-on-os-login-mode=windowed --app-launch-source=19
--disable-features=m
In addition, I started getting fancy with the Windows 10 Pro registry.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
; DisableCopilotSidebar.reg
; This was supposed to disable the Copilot PWA sidebar
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge]
"HubsSidebarAllowed"=dword:00000000
"EdgeEnableSideBar"=dword:00000000
Then I tried to use fancy methods to remove the sidebar, but this batch
script with those css and json files just brought up the same ole' PWA.
Here is copilot_nosidebar.bat
:: C:\data\sys\batch\copilot\copilot_nosidebar.bat
:: --load-extension flag forces Edge to load the CSS-hiding extension.
:: --disable-extensions-except flag ensures no other extensions interfere.
:: --app-id looks and feels exactly like the Copilot PWA.
:: --app-url looks and feels exactly like the Copilot PWA.
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge.exe" ^
--profile-directory=Default ^
--app-id=aioglfahffbnednffnodjbiiojbochai ^
--app-url=
https://copilot.microsoft.com/ ^
--app-run-on-os-login-mode=windowed ^
--app-launch-source=19 ^
--load-extension="C:\data\sys\batch\copilot" ^
--disable-extensions-except="C:\data\sys\batch\copilot"
Here is hide.css
/* This is C:\data\sys\batch\copilot\hide.css */
/* kill the sidebar region */
[role="complementary"],
.sidePanelContainer,
.hubSidebar,
.shellPane {
display: none !important;
visibility: hidden !important;
}
/* stretch the main content to fill the gap */
.mainContainer,
.rootContainer {
width: 100% !important;
margin: 0 !important;
}
Here is manifest.json
{
"manifest_version": 3,
"__comment": "This is C:\\data\\sys\\bat\\copilot\\manifest.json",
"name": "Hide Copilot Sidebar",
"version": "1.0",
"description": "Remove Copilot side panel by CSS injection",
"permissions": ["<all_urls>"],
"content_scripts": [
{
"matches": ["
https://copilot.microsoft.com/*"],
"css": ["hide.css"],
"run_at": "document_start"
}
]
}
Everything works fine to bring up the Copilot PWA with the sidebar.
But nothing (yet) worked to bring up the Copilot PWA without it.
I can't even remove the CoPilot sidebar from the PWA once up.
Apparently Microsoft added a sidebar toggle button in the current builds of
the Copilot app (version 1.25023.101.0 and higher),where, supposedly, when you're in full view, you'll see a control to show or hide the sidebar.
I don't see it in my version of the Copilot PWA, but I just checked now:
Win+R > msedge
edge://apps
Then I clicked "Details" in the CoPilot section.
But it doesn't tell me the version I'm using.
So I went to Win+I > Apps > Installed apps.> copilot (search)
That found two:
a. Microsoft Copilot Your AI companion, version 1.0
a. Microsoft Copilot Your AI companion version 1.0.0.0
(copilot.microsoft.com) 260KB
Then I tried powershell but I think this is the app (not the PWA).
PS C:\> Get-AppxPackage -Name *Copilot* | Select Name, PackageFullName, Version
copilot.microsoft.com-B9440449
copilot.microsoft.com-B9440449_1.0.0.0_neutral__nq21xkwj2f2mg 1
This confirms I have the Edge Progressive Web App (PWA) wrapper for
Copilot, and apparently not the newer Microsoft Store native app.
Apparently PWAs don't carry meaningful version numbers.
It seems for PWAs, Windows just assigns them a placeholder (1.0.0.0).
In Win+R > edge, edge://settings/help shows my MS Edge is up to date.
Version 141.0.3537.57
I rarely fail at anything, so that's why, in desperation, I've come to this Windows 10 newsgroup, since there must be a way to remove that PWA sidebar.
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* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)