Microsoft could give Windows 11 PCs a new option for the Copilot key – but don't get too excited just yet

• Microsoft could let you turn the Copilot key back into the old ‘Menu’ key
• That key brings up a context menu (like right-clicking with your mouse)
• This is useful in some scenarios, but many will want a fuller range of customization options for the key

Microsoft could soon give people whose keyboard has a Copilot key the ability to redefine it so a press of the key opens a context menu instead.

This is according to a well-known source of Windows-related rumors and happenings, PhantomOfEarth on X (formerly Twitter).

Remember, this is just a claim that Microsoft might do this in future test builds of Windows 11 – presumably based on clues found by the leaker digging around in current preview builds – and it still may not happen.

If none of the above makes much sense, and you’re scratching your head as to what’s potentially going on with the keyboard here, let us rewind a bit and explain.

What’s actually happening (or could be) is Microsoft is allowing the choice to revert the Copilot key back to what it was previously (on many laptop keyboards, anyway).

This old key that the Copilot button replaced was known as the ‘Menu’ key and it typically carries an icon with three horizontal lines (perhaps with a pointer, too), indicating that it’s used to summon the aforementioned context menu.

That context menu is the same one you invoke by right-clicking with your mouse, to give you options which are common actions in any given context (with files for example, you can click to see properties, or rename, and so forth).

Analysis: More choice is good, but…

Why would you want this old ‘Menu’ key that brings up the right-click context menu back, anyway? Well, it can be useful in situations where you don’t have a mouse (which is why this key is more often found on laptops) and so can’t necessarily right-click to bring up said menu. Microsoft used to have this key on its Surface devices, for example, between the ‘Alt’ key on the right and the arrow keys – but now it’s the Copilot key.

Not if you change it back by remapping, though – and if you find the context menu shortcut more useful than the Copilot key, well, apparently you might have your wish granted later this year. Albeit with the above caveats about this not even being in testing just yet.

Microsoft introduced the ability to remap the Copilot key to launch an app in preview (late last year). This move has since arrived in Windows 11, and you can switch the key to invoke a search, too, but remapping to an app comes with a notable (and annoying) catch that said software must be an MSIX-packaged application (not many apps are). This has been implemented that way for security reasons, in case you were wondering.

At any rate, a context menu option would at least be something, but I’m hoping that Microsoft will give us a lot more freedom eventually to redefine the Copilot key to do, well, anything we want (and act as a shortcut for any app at all, not just a limited selection). At least these all appear to be steps in the right direction for better customization, if only small strides.

Microsoft certainly appears to be giving up the notion that the Copilot key represented the most important introduction to the keyboard on Windows PCs since the Windows key itself.

Via XDA Developers

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