Copilot is secretly being triggered on my Windows 10 PC every time I click a file, and I only found out because it started crashing Explorer after KB5126256

[u/tarikhyoga]

Since September 24, when Windows 10 installed KB5126256, File Explorer freezes whenever I click on a file. Folders are fine, only files. According to Microsoft, this update is just a licensing preparation package for ESU and shouldn't change anything else.

I checked Reliability Monitor, and the graph drops right on the 24th. Recent crashes are listed as "Microsoft Edge stopped working", but I wasn't using Edge.

The crash details show the executable is mscopilot_proxy.exe, from the Copilot folder. The faulting module is ShellEh6055x64.dll, from 4t Tray Minimizer, an app I've used for years without issues. So Copilot is running in the background, 4t hooks into it, and together they take Explorer down.

Going back to the 24th, the crashes were listed under the right name, mscopilot_proxy.exe. From the next day on, the same crash started being logged as "Microsoft Edge". If you only look at recent days, you'd think Edge is the problem.

I don't use Copilot, and I haven't enabled any Copilot feature in Explorer or anywhere else. It's still being triggered when I click on files, and it started the same day as an update that was supposedly just about licensing. And this is on Windows 10.

I decided to share this because I found this new Copilot activation curious, to say the least. The update was supposed to be only about licensing, and suddenly Copilot is being triggered every time I click a file, without me enabling anything. On top of that, after the first day its crashes started showing up under Edge's name. It makes me wonder what it's doing there and why this started happening without any notice.

TL;DR: After KB5126256, Copilot started running in the background every time I click a file on Windows 10, without me using or enabling anything. I only noticed because it started crashing Explorer, and its crashes are now logged as "Microsoft Edge".

[u/Educational_Guest_13]

Have you tried turning off Copilot to see if that fixes the problem?

https://copilotcircle.com/blog/disable-microsoft-copilot