Microsoft Says Copilot Is a New OS. So…What Happened to Windows?
Microsoft says it’s building Copilot as a new OS, but don't worry, it's not replacing Windows...yet. And, in another big change, it's shutting down Publisher after 35 years, an app I know many people still love and use today.Read on for a look at why Microsoft is saying Copilot is an OS, the shift away from Copilot+ PCs, and the fate of Publisher. It could merely be a way to lean into some common Silicon Valley jargon, much in the way that Slack pitches itself as a “work operating system.” Or it could indicate that Microsoft is preparing for a post-Windows world.
- ▪Microsoft says it’s building Copilot as a new OS, but don't worry, it's not replacing Windows...yet.
- ▪And, in another big change, it's shutting down Publisher after 35 years, an app I know many people still love and use today.Read on for a look at why Microsoft is saying Copilot is an OS, the shift away from Copilot+ PCs, and the fate of Pu
- ▪It could merely be a way to lean into some common Silicon Valley jargon, much in the way that Slack pitches itself as a “work operating system.” Or it could indicate that Microsoft is preparing for a post-Windows world.
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| Original publisher | PCMag |
| Canonical URL | https://www.pcmag.com/news/microsoft-says-copilot-is-a-new-os-sowhat-happened-to-windows |
| Publication time | Wed, 30 Sep 26 14:00:00 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-09-30T14:07:01.620Z |
| Last seen | 2026-09-30T14:07:01.620Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | WhGO74AN7Xh4 · 1 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
Rights status (four layers)
WeSearch handling by dimension
| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Microsoft says it’s building Copilot as a new OS, but don't worry, it's not replacing Windows...yet. Although Copilot might indeed serve as the framework for the company's AI-centric visions, I think this announcement is likely to create far more confusion among the more than one billion current Windows users than Microsoft intended.Meanwhile, the company continues to shift away from its controversial Copilot+ PC branding with the latest Surface announcement. And, in another big change, it's shutting down Publisher after 35 years, an app I know many people still love and use today.Read on for a look at why Microsoft is saying Copilot is an OS, the shift away from Copilot+ PCs, and the fate of Publisher.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at PCMag.
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