Windows 11 offers a major update that adds a host of new features to Microsoft's latest operating system.

Copilot is on track to be one of the most exciting things to happen to Windows this year or this decade, because it's like Bing and ChatGPT, but for Windows 11.

Once you have access to it, you can simply press the Copilot button on the taskbar to bring up the chat window from the right side of the screen. From there, you can chat with Copilot within Windows and ask them to turn on dark mode, summarize text in images and documents, suggest playlists to improve productivity, etc.

This could be the biggest change to Microsoft's premier operating system in years, and hopefully you can just download the KB5030310 Windows 11 update from the Windows Update utility yourself. You can check it out.

However, there are a few more nuances to the process, so the download process for this update, which Microsoft is calling the Windows 11 22H2 "Moment 4" update, is briefly summarized below.

The process for downloading the latest Windows 11 update is very simple and can all be done from the Windows Update menu found by searching in Quick Start.

Before we discuss Copilot, let's briefly touch on some of the other new features coming to Windows 11 from this update.

When you download the update, you will see new websites in the "Recommended" section of the Start menu, a new design for File Explorer, a new "Windows Backup" app, and other new things should begin to appear.

We should also start to see new AI-like features in Microsoft apps such as Paint, Snipping Tool, and Notepad. Paint will have a new Cocreator tool that will allow users to enter what to draw using a text prompt, for example. Also, voice access in Windows 11 is getting better and spreading throughout Windows. This last part is especially exciting to me because voice access is a game changer for the way I work.

Right now, it's hard to say exactly what new features will be available when you download the latest update, as Microsoft is gradually rolling out new features in Windows 11 throughout the rest of 2023. For example, Copilot is being released today to "select global markets," and Microsoft claims that it "intends to expand its availability over time."

And since Microsoft is tight-lipped about how it will roll out globally, it is impossible to say for sure when you will be able to access the features you are missing. So, even if you have updated your PC according to the instructions above (it is especially important to make sure "Get the latest updates" is turned on) and you still do not have access to some of these features, do not worry - Microsoft is just taking its time! It may be.

All I can say is that as of yesterday (September 26), I updated my Windows 11 PC to the latest build (specifically, the 2023-09 Cumulative Update Preview), which means that I now have access to Copilot and several new Windows 11 features.

You can see many of the improvements Microsoft has made to the File Explorer layout, including a new Gallery view (which simply shows a list of all the images stored on your PC in reverse chronological order) and access to the new Windows Backup app. However, no matter how many times I restart my PC, I still can't seem to access Paint's new AI-like features.

But the big new feature everyone is talking about is Copilot, which I am cautiously excited about after a few hours of use.

This basically replaces Cortana, the virtual assistant that Microsoft had built directly into Windows from Windows 10 to Windows 11. Currently, pressing the old keyboard shortcut for Cortana (Windows key + C) invokes Copilot, aka Cortana 2.0, instead.

We have not yet delved deeply into what this early version of Copilot can do, but from what we have seen so far, it is clear that this is a pretty handy thing to have built into Windows. In fact, it is so useful that we find it a bit annoying that the Copilot appears in a thin sidebar on the right side of the screen.

But otherwise it's a small hassle for what is otherwise an attractive and potentially useful tool. What I like most about Copilot so far is that it works very well as an idiot's assistant for solving Windows problems. For example, if sound is not playing through the desired speakers and you want to change the sound settings but don't know where to find them, you can ask Copilot something as simple as "change sound output," and it will try to convert that into a query. (In this example, the search is for "how to change sound output in Windows 11.") Copilot will run that query using Bing and return the answer to you.

Now, Copilot can theoretically do much more than that, including directly changing Windows settings itself, scanning images to recognize what they are, and pulling up text. But even the very simple use of Copilot effectively Googling something for you (sorry, searching for something on Bing) and returning an answer in a summarized bulleted list was more helpful than I had hoped.

It's easy to imagine that people who would otherwise pester tech support services (or their children) with questions about basic Windows operation could rely on Copilot to handle basic troubleshooting.

Perhaps this is why Microsoft has recently begun to discontinue many of the troubleshooters built into Windows, as it is easy to imagine that Copilot could grow to become the first place to turn for help with technical problems in Windows.

However, Copilot is currently insufficient to rely on for anything serious because you can't expect the right answer; while using Copilot, I was surprised to find that it seems so helpful and intelligent, but still makes obvious and obvious mistakes! .

For example, when I sent Copilot a screenshot of a guide on how to download macOS Sonoma (pictured above), Copilot recognized the image as a macOS Sonoma screenshot. This is quite impressive.

What was less impressive was that Copilot identified the image as a macOS 12 Sonoma. The error may be in the source, not Copilot, but I will have to investigate this myself to find out, as the link to the source provided by Copilot turned out to be a 404.

However, this is the same handicap and lack of reliability as ChatGPT and other AI-like chatbots currently on the market; I didn't expect Windows Copilot to be free of this problem, but over the next year Microsoft will be working on this cool new I'm hoping that Microsoft will turn this cool new technology into something great over the next year.

This update marks a major turning point in the history of Windows, and it will be interesting to see it gradually rolled out around the world.

Anyone who owns Windows 11 can try downloading the update starting this week, but not all features (especially Copilot) may be available for a while yet. Microsoft is offering a preview of Copilot for Windows in initially in North and South America and parts of Asia, with the goal of rolling it out to more markets over time.

I'm hoping that Copilot will be a useful addition to my PC when it finally makes it into Windows 11 around the world; I certainly like the idea of having a little helper built into Windows that I can ask for help while I'm working.

I'm also a little wary of how this will change my view of computing and the Internet in general; now that I can ask Copilot for help or get a summary of an article, I no longer have to visit and read those articles. Will we see website traffic decrease and sources of useful content dry up thanks to information being captured and shared by super-smart chatbots? We will have to wait and see.