Microsoft’s new Copilot app may not be what Windows 11 users expected

Microsoft just released a new standalone Copilot app for Windows 11. It started showing up in the Microsoft Store and got pinned to taskbars for some users over the past couple days.

It didn’t take long for people to poke around the files and realize it wasn’t what they expected. The app is basically Microsoft Edge in disguise. Rename mscopilot.exe to msedge.exe and change the folder from Copilot to Edge, and it fires up the full browser. The trick works even if you already uninstalled the regular Edge and its WebView2 runtime.

Bob Pony caught it first. The Windows tinkerer posted a short video on X demonstrating the rename. It racked up more than 400,000 views almost immediately. 

Then another user, Yae Mica, dropped an even simpler workaround. The app is already baked into your normal Microsoft Edge installation. You can just rename the folder or create a symlink pointing to Copilot, run mscopilot.exe, and it works without installing a second copy at all.

Under the hood, Microsoft switched this version from native WinUI code to web components. It makes updates easier, but early tests show the app now eats more RAM than before. When you launch it, you still get the usual Copilot chat screen and AI answers pulled from the web. Functionally, nothing is broken. It just feels less like a fresh native tool and more like a repackaged browser.

Plenty of users on X called it lazy or desperate. A few pointed out that it still needs the web to work anyway, so a browser engine was inevitable. Others just shrugged and said classic Microsoft bloat. One person tested it on macOS and found the same stripped-down Edge treatment there too.

For now, the app sits in the Store as an optional download for most Windows 11 machines. Newer Copilot+ PCs get it pre-installed. Microsoft has not commented publicly on the rename findings or the bundled Edge code. The company has spent the past year dialing back some of its more aggressive Copilot integrations after user pushback.

More recently, they publicly committed to major changes to boost the user experience on Windows. That includes integrating AI “where it’s most meaningful,” not in apps like the Notepad and the screenshot tool.

That said, Microsoft hasn’t said anything yet about the close tie to Edge. For now, the app sits there as an optional download while the jokes keep rolling in.

Featured image generated with AI