Microsoft Office 365 and Co-Pilot

Gotadimple

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Messages yesterday in MS Office apps that reside on your desk top. As of 1/16 Outlook, OneNote, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint all have or will have Co-Pilot embedded in the software with an icon on the ribbon.

The cost of the annual subscription goes from $69+tax/$6.99 to $99.99/$9.99 per month. The pricing change occurs at your next renewal. The Terms and Conditions now include clauses that let Co-Pilot monitor your data. Co-Pilot can be disabled. Or if you currently have the Office 365 subscription you can downgrade at the next renewal to Microsoft Personal 365 or Family plans - the classic version. This version as best as I can tell just excludes Co-Pilot, keeps all the features, and maintains the current pricing.

"Existing subscribers with recurring billing enabled can switch to other plans without Copilot or AI credits like Microsoft 365 Basic, or, for a limited time, to our new Microsoft 365 Personal Classic or Microsoft 365 Family Classic plans." Switching to Microsoft 365 Personal and Family Classic Plans - Microsoft Support

Don't want to pay for Co-Pilot or take advantage of credits that reduce the cost when using it? Here are the rest of the choices:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/onedrive/compare-onedrive-plans?activetab=tab:primary I know it says OneCloud but their web/mobile-enabled apps use the OneDrive.
Or just buy the standalone software that has the 5 apps without the cloud storage requirement for $149 and buy newer versions with each major overhaul.

I'm looking at other solutions - like LibreOffice plus Dropbox. What are you currently using?
 
Thanks for posting this. I like using MS Office 365, and don't mind paying $70/year for that privilege. I like the ability to work across multiple devices (which I regularly do) on the same documents. But I have zero interest in using the Co-Pilot feature (or at least paying extra for it). My Office 365 subscription was set to renew in early April. I just used the link you posted above to switch to the 365 Personal Classic plan and remain at the $70 price point. It went smoothly and the change will take place in April on my renewal date.
 
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Thanks for posting this. My MS 365 subscription renews at the end of April. I've put a tickler in my calendar a couple days beforehand to make a decision on going with CoPilot or keeping the classic plan I have now.

I doubt I'll use CoPilot but I can test it out for free for the next 3 months.
 
I'd consider switching to Libre Office, except that I have written a bunch of complex Excel macros that would need to be re-written. I don't want to do that.
 
Office 2010 works for the little I need. If it no longer does, I'll go with something open source/ free.
 
I opened up Word yesterday for a quick task and was hit by a confusing screen. I couldn't make heads or tails of it until I realized that along with their Co-Pilot force-feeding, they defaulted to 240% magnification. I guess the kids won, they need to see stuff on their phone, and everything has to be 80 pt font.

After 15 minutes of confusion, I found this bug and reduced it to 100%. Now I need to find the way to disable Co-Pilot.
 
Thanks for posting this. I just changed to classic. I really do not want some AI bot scanning my personal data.
 
I opened up Word yesterday for a quick task and was hit by a confusing screen. I couldn't make heads or tails of it until I realized that along with their Co-Pilot force-feeding, they defaulted to 240% magnification. I guess the kids won, they need to see stuff on their phone, and everything has to be 80 pt font.

After 15 minutes of confusion, I found this bug and reduced it to 100%. Now I need to find the way to disable Co-Pilot.
Do a search there are detailed steps, not hard that takes it off the ribbon and disables it.
 
It all free in the MAC OSX. The AI is slowly coming in. At work using PC, copilot is...OK. Would not pay for it. Plus MS stuff is very confusing for file management etc. For those caring about this, trying the MAC makes sense (and no, unfortunately, I do not own apple stock).
 
Oh! And a very good .pdf editor is free as well in OSX! I HATED paying for that in Doze...
 
I used to have those in a spreadsheet. Now retired I don't need it.
I never used macros while working. I taught myself how to write macros to help my work as treasurer for my homeowners association.

The macros save me several hours every month.
 
Solved that problem. Haven't used any Microsoft software since I retired 11 years ago.
 
I remember when Kinko's had Office 97 CDs for $5 that had a time limit for a demo disk. Some one figured out if you replace one DLL file with the new one he created it would never expire. Microsoft was NOT pleased and went after the guy with a bunch of lawsuits. I don't know what happened to him.
 
It all free in the MAC OSX. The AI is slowly coming in. At work using PC, copilot is...OK. Would not pay for it. Plus MS stuff is very confusing for file management etc. For those caring about this, trying the MAC makes sense (and no, unfortunately, I do not own apple stock).
I'm curious about why you feel MS is confusing for file management? I'm not a fanboy I just have never heard this point of view about MS folder structure.
 
You can get Microsoft Office here as a one computer lifetime license for $55. I got the 2019 version for myself and DW for $30ish. It is legit in that you log in with your Microsoft account and download the file from Microsoft and use the code they give you to authenticate it. I think it’s a license that should be tied to an OEM purchase. I’m not sure but for the dollars involved I thought it was worth the risk and I’ve had no issues with it. I’ve had it on my Mac for over a year and on my wife’s laptop for a couple months.

 
I just asked Copilot to compose a simple email and it failed. "There was an error. Please try again later." I tried again, adding more detail to the desired outcome of the email. It failed again.

I then composed the email myself in about 90 seconds.
 
I just asked Copilot to compose a simple email and it failed. "There was an error. Please try again later." I tried again, adding more detail to the desired outcome of the email. It failed again.

I then composed the email myself in about 90 seconds.
copilot is hit or miss right now. I find it does do a descent job of research with citations that has saved me some time. It drives me nuts when I ask it to put the results in a spreadsheet or other MS document and it claims it did it and provides a link just for the link not to work. This happen often enough to make it not worth my time. I can copy and past into a document faster.
 
copilot is hit or miss right now. I find it does do a descent job of research with citations that has saved me some time.

Perhaps it does great on searching for research purposes. However, it just invaded my word processor and asked me to give it a try and it failed spectacularly.
 
Still will use Microsoft Office at the higher price. Perhaps one more price increase would cause me to find an alternative.
 

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