Enlarge / A Dell XPS 14 laptop. The Copilot key is to the right of the right-Alt button. (credit: Dell )

In January, Microsoft introduced a new key to Windows PC keyboards for the first time in 30 years. The Copilot key , dedicated to launching Microsoft's eponymous generative AI assistant, is already on some Windows laptops released this year. On Monday, Tom’s Hardware dug into the new addition and determined exactly what pressing the button does, which is actually pretty simple. Pushing a computer's integrated Copilot button is like pressing left-Shift + Windows key + F23 simultaneously.

Tom's Hardware confirmed this after wondering if the Copilot key introduced a new scan code to Windows or if it worked differently. Using the scripting program AuthoHotkey with a new laptop with a Copilot button, Tom's Hardware discovered the keystrokes registered when a user presses the Copilot key. The publication confirmed with Dell that “this key assignment is standard for the Copilot key and done at Microsoft's direction.”

F23

Surprising to see in that string of keys is F23. Having a computer keyboard with a function row or rows that take you from F1 all the way to F23 is quite rare today. When I try to imagine a keyboard that comes with an F23 button, vintage keyboards come to mind, more specifically buckling spring keyboards from IBM.

Enlarge / Two cheapo Intel mini PCs, a Raspberry Pi 5, and an Xbox controller for scale. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

I recently tried to use a Raspberry Pi 5 as a regular desktop PC . The experiment wasn't a failure—I was able to use a Pi to get most of my work done for a few days. But the device's performance, and especially the relative immaturity of the Linux's Arm software ecosystem, meant that there were lots of incompatibilities and rough edges.

One of the problems with trying to use a Pi 5 as a regular desktop computer is that, by the time you've paid for the 8GB version of the board, a decent active cooler and case, and (ideally) some kind of M.2 storage attachment and SSD, you've spent close to a couple of hundred dollars on the system. That's not a ton of money to spend on a desktop PC, but it is enough that the Pi no longer feels miraculously cheap, and there are actually other, more flexible competitors worth considering.

Consider the selection of sub-$200 mini desktop PCs that litter the online storefronts of Amazon and AliExpress. Though you do need to roll the dice on low-to-no-name brands like Beelink, GMKTec, Firebat, BMax, Trigkey, or Bosgame, it's actually possible to buy a reasonably capable desktop system with 8GB to 16GB of RAM, 256GB or 512GB of storage, a Windows 11 license, and a workaday x86-based Intel CPU for as little as $107, though Amazon pricing usually runs closer to $170.

Enlarge / If you've formatted a disk in Windows in the last 30 years, you may have come across this dialog box. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Windows 11 has done a lot to update and modernize long-neglected parts of Windows' user interface, including many Settings menus and venerable apps like Notepad and Paint. But if you dig deep enough, you'll still find parts of the user interface that look and work like they did in the mid-'90s, either for compatibility reasons or because no one ever thought to go back and update them.

Former Microsoft programmer Dave Plummer shared some history about one of those finely aged bits: the Format dialogue box, which is still used in fully updated Windows 11 installs to this day when you format a disk using Windows Explorer.

Plummer says he wrote the Format dialog in late 1994, when the team was busy porting the user interface from the consumer-focused Windows 95 (released in mid-1995) to the more-stable but more resource-intensive Windows NT (NT 4.0, released in mid-1996, was the first to use the 95-style UI).

Enlarge / "Notepad.exe but with spellcheck" looks pretty much exactly like you'd expect it to. (credit: Microsoft)

Whatever else you can say about Windows 11—and whatever you think about its pushy tendencies and the Copilot feature that has been rolled out to pretty much everyone despite being labeled a "preview"—the operating system has ushered in a bit of a renaissance for decades-old built-in apps like Paint and Notepad .

Notepad's development in particular has been striking; it had gotten small under-the-hood updates over the years, but in many ways, the version that was still in Windows 11 at launch in 2021 was the same app that Microsoft shipped with Windows XP, Windows 95, Windows 3.1, or even Windows 1.0.

An updated version of Notepad currently rolling out to Windows Insiders in the Canary and Dev channels is adding two more modern features to the old app: spellcheck and autocorrect. Per usual, spellcheck in Notepad highlights misspellings with red squiggly underlines, and right-clicking the word or pressing Shift + F10 will pop up a short menu of suggested fixes.

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  [credit: Microsoft ]

Microsoft is debuting major updates to two of its Surface PCs today: both the Surface Pro 10 and the 13.5- and 15-inch Surface Laptop 6 are major internal upgrades to Microsoft's mainstream Surface devices. Both were last updated nearly a year and a half ago , and they're both getting new Intel chips with significantly faster integrated GPUs, upgraded webcams, the Copilot key , and better battery life (according to Microsoft's spec sheets).

The catch is that both of these Surfaces are being sold exclusively to businesses and commercial customers; as of this writing, regular people will not be able to buy one directly from Microsoft, and they won't show up in most retail stores.

These aren't the first Surface products released exclusively for businesses. Microsoft introduced a new business-exclusive Surface Go 3 tablet last fall, and a Surface Pro 7+ variant for businesses in early 2021. It is, however, the first time Microsoft has introduced new versions of its flagship tablet and laptop without also making them available to consumers. You can find some of these business-only PCs for sale at some third-party retailers , but usually with extended shipping times and higher prices than consumer systems.