this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2026
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The new Micro~~soft~~slop copilot key always sends the following key-sequence when pressed:

copilot key down: left-shift-down left-meta-down f23-down f23-up left-meta-up left-shift-up
copilot key up: <null>

This means there's no real key-up event when you release the key --> it can't be used (properly) as a modifier like ctrl or alt.

The workaround is to send a pretend key-up event after a time delay, but then you mustn't be too slow / fast when pressing a shortcut.

tldr: AI took a perfectly working modifier key from you.

--- edit ---
Some keyboards apparently do the "right" thing and don't send the whole sequence at once, you can remap those properly with keyd, see: https://github.com/rvaiya/keyd/issues/1025#issuecomment-2971556563 / https://github.com/rvaiya/keyd/issues/825

copilot key down: left-shift-down left-meta-down f23-down
copilot key up: f23-up left-meta-up left-shift-up

this will still break left-shift + remapped copilot and left-meta + remapped copilot, but RCtrl remaps should work as expected

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[–] SUDO@reddthat.com 5 points 4 days ago

Didn't KDE say they were working on a way to remap it in a future update?

[–] kamen@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I'm all for hardware remappable keyboards in laptops too - just like what you can have with an external one. I do realise though that this is a niche within a niche. From what I know only Framework (oh, and System76) is doing something like that.

[–] probable_possum@leminal.space 6 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

It's worth taking a look in the BIOS/ UEFI setup - maybe the key can be remapped there? Once the default F-key behaviour could be defined in there for ThinkPad devices.

[–] ageedizzle@piefed.ca 2 points 4 days ago (2 children)

That sounds way beyond the average users technical expertise. But it sounds like it might work. If you manage to figure out how to do that please let me know 

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[–] RIotingPacifist@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago

Smells like antitrust violations.

[–] TootSweet@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago

Jesus. I guess we're going to have to start figuring out how to reverse engineer our keyboards so we can install QMK on random built-in laptop keyboards and cheap Logitech membrane keyboards to repair the damage Microsoft has done to them.

[–] Alaknar@sopuli.xyz -2 points 2 days ago (2 children)

In Windows:

PowerToys -> Keyboard Manager -> New Shortcut -> press the Copilot key -> select "Ctrl (right)" from the drop-down. Job done.

Not sure why is it so hard on Linux that it generates such headlines.

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[–] Psythik@lemmy.world 0 points 2 days ago

IDK I was able to remap it just fine using Power Toys.

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